CHARLES  GEANDISON  FINNEY 

MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

BY 
WILLIAM  C.  COCHRAN 


WITH  THE  COMPLIMENTS  OP 

i^REDERlc  KOBTON  FlKNBT 


CHARLES  GRANDISON  FINNEY 


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Charles  Grandison  Finney,  ael.  40 
From  an  Oil  Portrait 


CHARLES  GRANDISON   FINNEY 


iWemorial  ^bbregg 


DELIVERED  AT  THE  DEDICATION 

OF 

THE  FINNEY  MEMORIAL   CHAPEL 
OBERLIN,  JUNE  21,  1908 


BY 

WILLIAM  C.  COCHRAN 


REVISED  AND  ANNOTATED  BY  THE  AUTHOR 


PRINTED    FOR  PRIVATE  CIRCULATION 

BY  J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY,  PHILADELPHIA 
1908 


COPYRIGHT   1908,  BY  WILLIAM  C.  COCHRAN 


PREFACE  m       / 

The  Finney  Memorial  Chapel  was  erected  and 
given  to  Oberlin  College  by  Frederic  Norton 
Finney,  of  Milwaukee,  Wisconsin,  second  son  of 
Rev.  Charles  G.  Finney,  as  a  monument  to  his 
father.  It  stands  upon  the  site  where  Mr.  Fin- 
ney's residence  stood  for  over  seventy  years. 
The  Chapel  will  seat  2000  people  and  affords 
standing  room  for  1000  more  on  special  occa- 
sions, and  it  is  to  be  used  for  all  purposes  to 
which  a  public  auditorium  is  adapted.  The 
architect  who  designed  the  Chapel  and  super- 
vised its  construction  was  Mr.  Cass  Gilbert,  of 
New  York  City.  The  builder  was  George  Feick, 
of  Sandusky,  Ohio. 

The  Chapel  was  dedicated,  with  appropriate 
ceremonies,  on  Sunday,  June  21,  1908. 
William  C.  Cochran,  of  Cincinnati,  O.,  the  old- 
est grandson  of  President  Finney,  was  invited  " 
to  deliver  the  Memorial  Address.  He  was  born 
in  Mr.  Finney's  house,  was  a  frequent  visitor 
during  his  early  youth,  and  was  an  inmate  of 

[6] 


PREFACE 

the  family  from  the  fall  of  1866  to  the  fall  of 
1869,  during  which  time  Mr.  Finney  was  en- 
gaged in  the  preparation  of  his  "Memoirs." 
He  was  urged  to  do  this  by  friends  in  the  East 
who  sent  out  a  stenographer  to  assist  him  in  the 
work.  He  was  assured  that  it  was  of  the  utmost 
importance  to  preserve  the  record  of  the  wonder- 
ful revivals  which  attended  his  labors,  for  the 
instruction  of  posterity  and  the  stimulus  to  like 
self-sacrificing  labor  on  the  part  of  others.  The 
work  was  really  distasteful  to  hun  and  he  dis- 
missed the  stenographer  after  a  few  months  and 
destroyed  a  large  part  of  her  work,  as  it  seemed 
to  him  to  be  akin  to  self -laudation  and  an 
attempt  to  claim  the  glory  which  belonged  to 
God  alone.  His  friends  persisted  and,  a  year 
later,  another  stenographer  was  employed,  with 
whose  assistance  the  Memoirs  were  completed, 
practically  as  they  now  appear  in  print. 

The  effort  to  recall  the  past  brought  to  mind 
many  incidents  of  his  early  life,  pleasant  and 
otherwise,  which  he  would  tell  the  family  and 
which  they  supposed  would  appear  in  his  Me- 
moirs.    These  were  not  published  until  after 

[6] 


PREFACE 

his  death  in  1875,  and  then  it  was  discovered 
that  he  had  eliminated  almost  ever3rfching  which 
was  not  directly  connected  with  his  conversion 
and  the  religious  work  to  which  he  dedicated 
his  life.  He  may  have  thought  such  incidents 
too  trivial  to  record  and  his  purely  personal  his- 
tory as  of  no  consequence,  but  in  this  we  believe 
he  was  mistaken. 

It  is  impossible,  in  a  public  address  of  an 
hour^s  duration,  to  treat  in  detail  of  a  life  that 
was  so  long  and  so  full  of  incident.  The  speaker 
determined  to  present  some  facts  regarding 
Mr.  Finney's  early  life  which  are  not  commonly 
known,  but  which  throw  a  strong  light  on  his 
character  and  his  unconscious  preparation  for  a 
life-work  which  was  far  from  his  thoughts  as  a 
young  man,  and  to  call  attention  to  some  of  the 
more  striking  passages  in  his  later  life  which 
illustrate  his  character  and  power.  The  text,  as 
printed,  embraces  many  interesting  details  which 
were  necessarily  excluded  from  the  address  as 
delivered,  and  notes  have  been  added  which  indi- 
cate the  sources  of  information.  Where  no 
credit  is  given,  the  speaker  relied  on  the  "Me- 

[7] 


PREFACE 

moirs/'  his  own  personal  knowledge  of  the  facts, 
or  his  recollection  of  things  told  him  by  Mr. 
Finney  at  the  time  he  was  preparing  his  Me- 
moirs. Wherever  it  was  possible  the  speaker 
verified  his  own  recollection  by  consulting  mem- 
bers of  the  family  and  early  friends  of  Mr.  Fin- 
ney, public  records  and  the  published  writings 
of  contemporaries.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  rescue 
from  oblivion  such  facts  in  regard  to  his  early 
education  and  accomplishments  as  have  been 
heretofore  ignored,  and  to  correct  as  far  as  possi- 
ble the  misunderstanding  with  regard  to  his  cul- 
ture and  attainments  which  has  arisen  in  some 
quarters.  No  narrow-minded,  half-educated 
man  could  have  accomplished  what  Mr.  Finney 
did,  under  Providential  guidance.  The  instru- 
ment chosen  was  well  fitted  for  the  work,  both  by 
nature  and  by  training. 

w.  c.  c. 

Cincinnati,  Ohio,  September  30, 1908. 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

Chaklbs  Gkandison  Finney,  aet.  40 Frontispiece 

(From,  an  oil  portrait) 

Finney  Memorial  Chapel 12 

{East  front) 

Charles  Grandison  Finney,  aet.  65 15 

{From  an  amhrotype) 

Frederic  Norton  Finney 76 


Finney  Memorial  Chapel 94 

{From  the  southwest) 


CHARLES  GRANDISON  FINNEY 


A  recent  author  has  announced,  as  the  result 
of  his  investigations  in  the  psychology  of  relig- 
ion, that  conversion  is  distinctly  a  phenomenon 
of  adolescence ;  that  the  event  occurs  most  often 
at  the  age  of  sixteen  and  immediately  before 
and  after  that  year ;  and  that,  if  conversion  has 
not  occurred  before  twenty,  the  chances  are 
small  that  it  will  ever  be  experienced. 

His  conclusions  are  based  on  reports  from 
1265  individuals,  whose  average  age  was  30,  and 
the  oldest  of  whom  was  but  40.  A  large  majority 
of  them  were  students  and  alumni  of  a  single 
denominational  school.  His  basis  seems  hardly 
broad  enough  for  safe  generalization.  Even  if 
it  can  be  considered  a  representative  body  of 
men  and  women,  it  speaks  only  of  conditions 
prevailing  in  the  last  quarter  century.^ 

'Psychology  of  Religion,  by  Prof.  E.  D.  Starbuck,  Ph.D., 
pp.  28,^30,  38. 

[11] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

If  it  is  a  faithful  picture  of  existing  condi- 
tions, the  church  is  in  danger.  If  it  be  con- 
ceded that  religion  has  no  power  to  attract  men 
of  mature  judgment,  wide  reading  and  experi- 
ence, and  cultivated  habits  of  thought,  the  church 
will  lose  not  only  them,  but  many  of  the  young 
converts,  who  wdll,  sooner  or  later,  come  to 
believe  that  religion  is  a  species  of  children's 
disease  and  that  manhood  requires  them  to  reject 
what,  they  find,  other  men  are  not  expected  to 
accept.  Even  if  they  persist  in  their  faith  and 
do  not  allow  the  defection  of  others  to  disturb 
their  serenity,  they  will  lack  power  to  win  over 
others  from  the  ranks  of  the  unconverted.  How 
can  a  person,  who  has  never  considered  the  mani- 
fold arguments  against  "revealed  religion," 
persuade  one  who  has  been  carried  away  by 
them?  How  can  one,  who  has  never  had  a 
doubt,  understand  and  help  one  who  has  been 
perplexed  with  doubts  all  his  life  ?  Doubt  must 
be  dispelled  by  evidence  and  by  argument  that 
takes  into  account  the  many  and  real  difficulties 
which  beset  candid  minds.  The  untested 
''  credo  ''  of  a  child  avails  little. 

[12] 


9  w 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

It  is  my  privilege,  to-night,  to  speak  of  a  con- 
spicuous exception  to  the  rule,  if  there  be  any 
such  rule. 

The  religion  of  Charles  Gr.  Finney  had  noth- 
ing to  do  with  adolescence.  He  was  not  a  prod- 
uct of  the  Sunday  School.  He  never  entered 
one  until  long  after  he  was  converted.  He  was 
not  swept  into  the  church  on  the  tide  of  a  great 
emotional  revival. 

At  the  age  of  twenty-nine,  Charles  G.  Finney 
was  a  splendid  pagan — a  young  man  rejoicing  in 
his  strength,  proudly  conscious  of  his  physical 
and  intellectual  superiority  to  all  around  him. 
He  had  a  magnificent  physique.  Standing  six 
feet  two  in  his  stocking  feet,  he  looked  much 
taller  than  that,  for  he  was  very  erect,  very  alert, 
full  of  life  and  energy,  and  walked  with  a  quick, 
elastic  step  that  made  people  instinctively  turn 
and  look  at  him.  Without  an  ounce  of  super- 
fluous  flesh  he  weighed  one  hundred  and  eighty- 
five  pounds.  He  could  not  remember  that  he 
had  ever  been  sick  a  day  in  his  life.  He  had 
been  trained  in  nature's  gymnasium — the  forest, 
the  clearing,  the  field. 

[13] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

The  young  people  had  their  athletic  sports  in 
those  days,  as  well  as  now/  Every  Fourth  of 
July,  Training  Day  and  Thanksgiving  Day  was 
a  *' field  day,"  in  which  old  and  young  engaged 
in  the  various  sports,  and  champions  of  differ- 
ent towns  and  *' cross-roads"  strove  for  the  mas- 
tery.^ Mr.  Finney  did  his  full  share  of  the  work 
and  entered  with  zest  into  all  such  games  and 
contests.  Thousands  of  country  boys  did  the 
same;  there  was  nothing  exceptional  about  his 
opportunities.  What  was  exceptional  was  the 
use  he  made  of  them,  his  ambition  to  excel — 
even  in  the  small  affairs  of  life. 

He  brought  to  every  task  and  every  game — ^be- 
sides his  athletic  frame — keen  intelligence,  ner- 
vous energy  and  indomitable  will.    When  he 

'  The  chief  sports  were  running,  vaulting,  high  jump,  stand- 
ing jump,  running  jump,  hop,  skip  and  jump,  boxing,  wrestling, 
foot-ball  (the  kicking  game),  town -ball  (from  which  our  game 
of  base-ball  was  evolved),  pitching  quoits,  shooting  at  a  mark, 
etc.  Boxing  was  not  bruising.  It  consisted  in  efforts  to  knock 
off  the  hat  or  cap  of  an  opponent  and  parrying  similar  efforts 
on  his  part.  Occasionally  a  boxer  received  a  severe  blow  on 
the  head,  but  that  was  incidental  and  not  a  matter  of  intention. 
Wrestling  was  regarded  as  the  king  of  sports  and  the  champion 
wrestler  was  held  in  high  honor. 

*  Houghes'  History  of  Jefferson  County,  N.  Y.,  p.  36. 

[14] 


Charles  Grandison  Finney,  act.  65 
From  an  Ambrotype 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

was  twenty,  he  excelled  every  man  and  boy  he 
met,  in  every  species  of  toil,  or  sport.  No  man 
could  throw  him;  no  man  could  knock  his  hat 
off ;  no  man  could  run  faster,  jump  farther,  leap 
higher,  or  throw  a  ball  with  greater  force  and 
precision.  When  his  family  moved  to  the  shore 
of  Henderson's  Bay,  near  Sackett's  Harbor,  he 
added  to  his  accomplishments  rowing,  swimming 
and  sailing.  He  was  a  lover  of  nature  and  the 
*  *  call  of  the  wild ' '  was  strong  in  him.  He  hardly 
knew  which  he  loved  most — ^the  depth  of  the 
forest,  with  its  mysterious  life  and  whisperings ; 
or  the  solitude  of  the  open  lake  with  the  great 
depths  of  sky  above  and  water  below  and  nothing 
between  him  and  eternity,  but  the  thin  sides  of 
a  boat. 

He  had  a  large  head,  symmetrically  developed 
and  crowned  with  abundant  light-brown  hair, 
silky  in  texture  and  slightly  curling.^     His  nose 

*  As  will  be  seen  from  the  profile  view  published  herewith, 
his  profile  from  the  glabella  to  the  occipital  point  formed  an 
almost  perfect  semi-circle,  the  only  variation  being  at  the  top, 
where  the  dome  rose  above  the  line  of  the  circle.  When  Mr. 
Finney  visited  New  York  in  1830,  the  pseudo-science  of 
Phrenology  had  a  great  vogue  and  his  interest  was  aroused.  He 
thought  it  might  aid  him  in  his  study  of  human  nature  and  he 

[15] 


CHARLES  GRANDISON  FINNEY 

was  strongly  aquiline.  His  eyes  were  large  and 
blue,  at  times  mild  as  an  April  sky,  and  at  others, 
cold  and  penetrating  as  polished  steel.  At  times 
they  beamed  with  love  and  sympathy,  at  other 
times  they  became  scrutinizing  and  inscrutable. 
One  day,  nothing  escaped  their  attention;  the 
next,  they  seemed  to  take  note  of  nothing  terres- 
trial. When  in  the  full  tide  of  his  eloquence, 
they  swept  his  audience  like  search  lights,  fas- 
cinating, compelling  attention,  yet  producing 
strange,  uneasy  feelings.  His  complexion  was 
fair,  and  readily  flushed  with  every  passing 
emotion. 

not  only  investigated  the  subject  carefully,  but  submitted  to 
having  his  own  head  "  examined  and  charted."  The  result  de- 
lighted the  phrenologists,  for  everything  that  was  known  of  his 
mental  traits  and  character  corresponded  closely  with  their  inter- 
pretation of  his  cranial  development.  The  physical,  mental  and 
spiritual  qualities  were  all  highly  developed  and  almost  equally 
balanced.  He  had  great  ambition,  firmness  and  self-esteem,  but 
greater  benevolence  and  spirituality.  The  logical  faculty  was 
highly  developed;  but  so  was  sublimity  and  the  imaginative.  He 
had  the  "  bumps  "  of  time,  tune,  and  language  and  great  knowl- 
edge of  human  nature.  The  only  thing  which  puzzled  them  was 
an  apparently  large  development  of  hiunor,  or  mirthfulness, 
which  seemed  inconsistent  with  the  severe  gravity  of  his  speech 
and  manner;  but  all  who  remembered  him  in  his  youth,  noted 
his  natural  love  of  fun,  his  sociable  disposition  and  his  keen 
sense  of  the  ridiculous. 

[16] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

At  Henderson,  he  taught  school  from  his  six- 
teenth to  his  twentieth  year,  two  months  in  sum- 
mer and  three  months  in  winter.  It  was  like  the 
ideal  university — in  one  respect — anybody  could 
study  anything.  There  were  no  grades  and  no 
prescribed  text-books.  Each  scholar  brought 
such  books  as  he  possessed  and  the  teacher  did 
the  rest.  One  who  attended  this  school  ^  said  of 
him: 

i  I  There  was  nothing  which  anyone  else  knew, 
that  Mr.  Finney  didn't  know,  and  there  was 
nothing  which  anyone  else  could  do  that  Mr. 
Einney  could  not  do — and  do  a  great  deal  better. 
He  was  the  idol  of  his  pupils.  He  joined  in  their 
sports  before  and  after  school,  and  although  at 
first  there  were  older  and  larger  boys  than  he  in 
the  school,  he  could  beat  them  at  everything. 
He  would  lie  down  on  the  ground  and  let  as 
many  as  could  pile  on  top  of  him  and  try  to  hold 
him  down.  He  would  say,  'Are  you  ready?' 
Then  he  would  make  a  quick  turn,  rise  up  and 
shake  them  all  off,  just  as  a  lion  might  shake  off  a 
lot  of  puppies.  In  school,  all  was  different. 
He  was  very  dignified  and  kept  perfect  order. 
Should  any  boy  attempt  to  create  a  disturbance, 

^  Horatio  N.  Davis,  father  of  Senator  Cushman  K.  Davis,  late 

of  Minnesota. 

2  [17] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

one  flash  of  Mr.  Finney's  eye  would  quell  the 
sinner  at  once.  Oh,  I  tell  you,  they  all  loved 
and  worshiped  him,  and  all  felt  that  some  day  he 
would  be  a  great  man. ' ' 

A  young  man,  from  sixteen  to  twenty,  could 
hardly  be  employed  better  than  in  teaching  a 
country  school.  It  completes  his  own  elemen- 
tary education;  gives  him  power  to  express 
clearly  what  he  knows;  awakens  in  him  a  con- 
sciousness of  power  over  others  and  a  knowledge 
of  human  nature.  The  effort  to  command  the 
respect  of  others  contributes  to  his  own  dignity 
and  self-respect.  He  must  be  careful  in  his 
speech  and  manners,  so  as  not  to  offend  or  cor- 
rupt any  of  the  little  ones  committed  to  his 
charge.  Thus  Mr.  Finney  grew  to  manhood, 
strong,  self-respecting,  helpful  to  others,  clean 
of  speech  and  correct  in  habits. 

Mr.  Finney  was  fitted  for  this  work  of  teach- 
ing, by  two  years'  schooling  in  the  Hamilton 
Oneida  Institute,  at  Clinton,  New  York,^  only  a 
few  miles  from  his  father's  farm  in  Oneida 
County.     The  principal  of  this  school,  at  that 

*  Afterwards  incorporated  as  Hamilton  College. 
[18] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

time,  was  Seth  Norton,  a  graduate  of  Yale  Col- 
lege and  a  tutor  there  for  two  years  before  com- 
ing to  Clinton.  He  was  a  fine  classical  scholar, 
an  inspiring  teacher  and  a  lover  of  music.  He 
composed  hymns  and  anthems  and  was  the  vil- 
lage chorister. ^  He  discovered  great  possibili- 
ties in  this  tall,  blue-eyed  child  of  the  woods,  and 
seems  to  have  given  him  unusual  attention.  He 
inspired  him  with  an  ambition  to  secure  a  classi- 
cal education  and  evoked  an  intense  love  of  music. 
He  taught  him  to  sing,  to  read  music  at  sight, 
and  to  play  on  the  violin  and  bass  viol,  or  what 
we  would  call  the  violoncello.  That  instrument 
appealed  powerfully  to  Mr.  Finney's  passionate 
nature.  When  he  began  to  earn  money  by  teach- 
ing, the  first  use  he  made  of  it  was  to  buy  a  'cello. 
Then  he  gave  up  much  of  his  leisure  to  singing,  to 
the  mastery  of  his  'cello,  and  to  a  thorough  un- 
derstanding of  harmony  and  composition.  It 
was  the  day  of  "buckwheat  notes"  ^  and  *' figured 

^  Statement  of  Dr.  A.  N.  Brockway,  of  New  York  City. 

*  Among  his  early  possessions  was  an  old  Psalm  Book  of  the 
Dutch  Reformed  Church,  with  black,  square,  lozenge  and  other 
queer  shaped  notes,  which  soon  disappeared  from  other  hymn 
books  and  musical  collections.  The  "figured  bass"  persisted  in 
hymnals  and  music  books  down  to  1860,  or  thereabouts. 

[19] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

bass"  and,  without  a  master,  he  soon  learned  to 
invest  an  air  with  its  appropriate  chords  and  to 
write  out  the  different  parts  for  a  chorus.  He 
thus  came  into  the  very  heart  of  music ;  to  have 
a  thorough  appreciation  of  all  that  was  good,  and 
a  proper  contempt  for  all  that  was  trivial.  This 
deep  understanding  of,  and  loving  interest  in 
good  music  in  after  years  secured  for  him  the 
devoted  attachment  of  such  organists  and  com- 
posers as  Lowell  Mason,  at  Boston,  and  Thomas 
Hastings  and  William  B.  Bradbury  at  New 
York.  They  were  glad  to  consult  his  wishes 
while  conducting  choirs  in  the  places  where  he 
preached.^  I  may  be  pardoned  for  dwelling  at 
such  length  on  his  musical  tastes  and  accomplish- 
ments, for  they  played  an  important  part  in 

*  Mr.  Finney's  daughters  were  accomplished  singers,  and  one 
of  them  became  a  fine  performer  on  the  lute,  guitar,  harp,  and 
piano.  He  tried  to  teach  his  sons  to  play  on  the  violin  and  'cello, 
but  their  energies  sought  other  channels  and  a  critical  taste  for 
good  music  was  all  they  acquired.  In  1848,  Gen.  J,  D.  Cox,  then 
a  student  at  Oberlin  College  and  a  frequent  visitor  at  the  Finney 
house,  wrote  home :  "  He  lives  what  he  preaches  and  there  is 
nothing  like  austerity  about  him.  In  his  family  he  is  all  pleas- 
antness— sings  and  plays  with  his  children  and  is  as  one  of 
them.  *  *  •  jje  is  passionately  fond  of  music  and  we  can 
at  any  time  make  up  a  choir  in  the  family." 

[20] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

shaping  his  subsequent  career,  and  they  con- 
tributed in  no  small  degree  to  making  Oberlin 
the  musical  centre  that  it  is  to-day. 

He  had  a  musical  voice  of  phenomenal  range, 
flexibility  and  power,  and  song  was  the  natural 
expression  of  his  healthy,  joyous  soul.  But  he 
was  also  intensely  emotional  and  almost  as  sensi- 
tive to  sympathetic  appeals  as  his  'cello  was  to 
the  vibrations  of  the  strings.  It  was  not  an  un- 
usual thing  for  him,  strong  and  vigorous  as  he 
was,  to  weep  over  his  'cello ;  and  he  resorted  to 
it,  in  every  hour  of  trouble,  as  to  a  bosom  friend. 
To  use  his  own  expression,  his  '*  sensibility  often 
overflowed."  But  this  mood  was  exceptional. 
He  was,  normally,  full  of  fun  and  endowed 
with  a  strong  sense  of  humor.  He  loved  to 
dance  and  was  foremost  in  social  meetings  of 
every  sort.  He  was  saved  from  intemperance, 
profanity,  and  vileness — ^not  by  any  religious 
scruples,  for  at  this  time  he  had  none — but  by  his 
innate  delicacy  and  refinement. 

In  the  summer  of  1812  war  was  declared 
against  Great  Britain.    It  was  not  generally  ex- 
pected ;  in  the  North  it  was  not  desired.     Sack- 
pi] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

ett's  Harbor,  only  a  few  miles  from  Mr.  Fin- 
ney's home,  was  made  a  naval  base;  a  fort  was 
erected  and  garrisoned  by  a  few  companies  of 
soldiers;  sMps  and  naval  stores  were  concen- 
trated at  that  point  and  the  construction  of 
other  ships  of  war  was  begun.^  Rumors  of  an 
invasion  from  Canada  filled  the  air  and  the 
militia  was  called  out.  A  company  was  formed 
at  Henderson,  out  of  persons  exempt  from  mili- 
tary service,  with  Mark  Hopkins  as  Captain.^ 
He  tendered  their  services  to  the  Governor  of 
New  York  with  the  significant  statement  that 
they  were  opposed  to  the  war,  but  would  go  to 
any  place  in  the  county  for  home  defense.^ 

Notwithstanding  this  adverse  sentiment  of  his 
neighbors,  Mr.  Finney  went  to  Sackett's  Harbor, 

^Adams'  History  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  vi,  pp.  342  to 
344;  Houghes'  History  of  Jefferson  County,  N.  Y.,  pp.  587,  588. 

"Public  Papers  of  Daniel  H.  Tompkins,  Vol.  i,  p.  376. 

*  Thurlow  Weed  says  that  a  similar  sentiment  prevailed  in 
Oneida  County  and  generally  throughout  Northern  New  York. 
Autobiography,  pp.  23,  26.  The  opposition  of  its  leading  citi- 
zens to  the  war  prevented  the  selection  ol  Henderson  Harbor — 
a  much  better  place  than  Sackett's  Harbor — for  the  naval  base 
and  probably  ruined  its  chances  of  becoming  an  important  lake 
port  and  city.  Houghes'  History  of  Jefferson  County,  N.  Y., 
pp.  167,  168. 

[22] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

among  the  first,  to  enlist  in  the  Navy.  There 
was  fighting  blood  in  his  veins/  When  he  got 
there  all  was  confusion.  There  seemed  to  be 
no  order,  no  discipline,  no  understanding  of 
what  was  to  be  done,  or  how  to  do  it.  He  was 
amazed  at  the  incompetence  displayed.  The 
militia,  freed  from  home  restraints  and  not  yet 
subjected  to  military  discipline,  were  becoming 
demoralized.  The  streets  were  full  of  drunken 
men,  cursing,  quarreling  and  refusing  to  take 
orders  from  anybody.  He  heard  more  profan- 
ity and  obscenity  in  that  one  day,  than  he  had 
heard  in  all  his  life  before.  To  cap  the  climax, 
he  was  accosted  by  an  abandoned  woman — a  fol- 
lower of  the  camp, — young,  pretty  and  saucy. 
He  looked  at  her  in  wonder  and,  when  he  com- 
prehended the  nature  of  her  request,  he  was  so 
overcome  with  pity  for  her  degradation  and  lack 
of  shame  that  his  cheeks  burned  and  before  he 

^  Finneys  were  among'  the  Norsemen  who  swooped  down  upon 
the  Channel  Islands  in  the  tenth  century,  and  they  settled  in 
Guernsey.  One  of  his  ancestors  was  •  a  captain  of  militia  at 
Bristol,  R.  I.,  in  the  seventeenth  century.  Three  cousins  were 
officers  in  the  New  York  State  Militia  at  various  times  from 
1811  to  1815.  Military  Minutes  of  the  Council  of  Appointment 
of  the  State  of  New  York,  Vol.  ii,  1808-1817. 

[23] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

could  check  it,  he  was  shedding  tears  and  sobbing 
violently.  She,  moved  to  shame  by  this  extra- 
ordinary spectacle,  wept  too,  and  without  an- 
other word  they  parted  and  Mr.  Finney  went 
back  home  to  tell  his  'cello  of  the  awful  things 
he  had  seen  and  heard  that  day.^ 

He  was  willing  to  fight  for  his  coiuitry — in  a 
just  cause.  He  was  not  willing  to  sacrifice  him- 
self on  the  altar  of  incompetence — especially  for 
a  cause  which  his  most  respected  neighbors  con- 
sidered unjust. 

The  threatened  invasion  was  a  fiasco ;  the  scare 
was  soon  over;  the  militia  returned  to  their 
homes  and,  in  the  fall  of  that  year,  he  went  to 
Warren,  Connecticut,  his  native  town,  to  pre- 
pare for  Yale  College  in  a  high  school  which  en.- 
joyed  a  wide  reputataion.^  There,  undisturbed 
by  faint  rumors  of  a  war  in  which  the  people 

*In  narrating  this  incident,  fifty-five  years  later,  he  was 
visibly  affected  and  remarked :  "  Oh,  if  I  had  only  been  a 
Christian  at  that  time!  That  young  woman  might  have  been 
saved!  Perhaps  God  brought  about  this  meeting  on  purpose  to 
open  her  eyes,  and  she  may  have  repented." 

"  The  Hamilton  Oneida  Institute  had  become  a  college  in  1812, 
and  his  former  instructor,  Seth  Norton,  had  become  Professor 
of  Ancient  Languages,  and  was  no  longer  available,  as  he  was 
fully  occupied  in  college  duties,  having  nine  recitations  daily. 

[24] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

of  New  England  took  no  interest,  he  passed  two 
years  in  study/  He  supported  himself  by  work 
on  his  uncle's  farm,  in  summer,  and  teaching 
singing  school,  in  winter. '  The  young  people 
came  from  miles  around  to  attend  this  school, 
and  the  traditions  of  his  fine  singing  are  still 
well  preserved  in  that  vicinity.  He  developed 
a  great  reputation  as  a  wit,  an  orator,  and  a 
poet.  He  was  the  editor  of  a  school  journal 
which  was  prepared  in  manuscript  and  passed 
from  hand  to  hand.  It  abounded  in  local  hits, 
and  every  foible  of  teacher,  pastor,  leading  citi- 
zens, or  pupils,  was  touched  up  in  satirical  vein.^ 
In  1814  Mr.  Finney  was  prepared  to  enter 
Yale  College  and  began  to  think  of  ways  and 
.  means  for  going,  but  his  teacher,  himself  a  Yale 

He  died  in  1818 — probably  worked  to  death.  Statement  of 
Dr.  Asahel  Norton  Brockway,  of  New  York  City. 

^  The  extent  of  this  disaffection  may  be  judged  from  the  fact 
that  the  "  p^nce  party "  carried  Massachusetts  in  the  fall  of 
1812  by  a  majority  of  24,000,  swept  the  congressional  districts 
throughout  New  England  and  New  York,  and  captured  the 
electoral  votes  of  all  these  states,  except  Vermont.  Adams'  His- 
tory of  the  United  States,  Vol.  vi,  pp.  389,  413. 

*  Statement  of  Noble  B.  Strong,  Cornwall  Bridge,  Conn., 
whose  father  attended  the  Warren  High  School,  at  the  same  time 
as  Mr.  Finney. 

[25] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

graduate,  advised  him  not  to  go,  saying  that  he 
had  already  learned  to  study  and  think  and  did 
not  need  the  recitations,  that  it  was  a  waste  of 
time  to  attend  them',  and  that  he  could  easily 
take  the  whole  four  years'  course  in  two.  This 
was  verified  by  the  actual  experience  of  Horace 
Bushnell,  who  afterwards  attended  this  same 
high  school  and  then  graduated  from  Yale  Col- 
lege in  two  years.  Forty  years  later  Andrew 
D.  White  went  through  Yale,  and  complains,  in 
his  autobiography,  that  he  learned  nothing  there, 
except  what  was  in  his  books,  and  that  he  could 
have  learned  a  great  deal  more,  if  he  had  not 
been  obliged  to  waste  three  of  the  best  hours  of 
each  day  in  attending  recitations.  Mr.  Finney 
followed  the  advice  of  his  teacher,  went  to  New 
Jersey  to  teach  school,  and  at  the  same  time  car- 
ried on  his  college  studies,  going  back  to  War- 
ren, at  intervals,  to  review  them  with  his  teacher 
and  to  receive  further  suggestions  and  assist- 
ance. Thus  he  had  mastered  the  whole  college 
curriculum  at  the  age  of  twenty-six.  His  knowl- 
edge of  Latin,  Greek,  and  Mathematics  was  as 
good  as  that  of  any  graduate  who  had  not  pur- 

[26] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

sued  post-graduate  courses;  hut  one  tMng  was 
lacking — lie  had  not  received  a  college  diploma. 
No  one  has  ever  questioned  the  scholarship  of 
Father  Keep,  John  P.  Cowles,  or  Henry  Cowles, 
because  they  secured  Yale  diplomas.  President 
Mahan  secured  one  at  Hamilton  College,  Dr. 
Morgan  secured  one  at  Williams,  President 
Fairchild  secured  one  at  Oberlin.  All  these 
were  accounted  ''learned  men."  If  they  had 
not  received  degrees,  they  might  have  been  called 
ignorant  men.  That  is  the  fate  which  has  over- 
taken their  associate,  Mr.  Finney,  in  these  latter 
days.  Men  who  never  knew  him  have  spoken 
of  him  as  though  he  were  a  fervid,  but  unedu- 
cated exhorter,  and  in  a  History  of  Presby- 
terianism  in  Central  New  York,  I  was  startled 
to  find  him  charged  with  "rashness"  due  to 
"imperfect  education."  It  is  news  to  the 
Alimini  and  ex-students  of  Oberlin  College.  It 
is  news  to  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men 
and  women  who  heard  him  preach  in  this  coun- 
try and  Great  Britain.  It  affects  us  much  as  it 
would  to  hear  Benjamin  Franklin  called  an 
ignorant  man,  though  his  schooling  ended  at  the 

[27] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

age  of  ten;  or  William  CuUen  Bryant,  though 
he  did  not  get  beyond  the  freshman  year;  or 
Joseph  Henry,  who  graduated  at  an  academy, 
like  the  Warren  high  school,  and  never  went  to 
a  college. 

We  should  remember  that  while  colleges  and 
professional  schools  afford  facilities  for  acquir- 
ing an  education,  they  have  no  monopoly.  There 
were  great  lawyers  before  any  of  the  existing 
law  schools  were  founded,  and  great  preachers 
and  theologians  before  any  of  the  seminaries 
came  into  existence.  Great  scientists,  linguists, 
statesmen,  and  economists  have  grown  up  entirely 
outside  of  the  schools.  If  a  man  will  read,  in- 
vestigate and  think,  wherever  he  is,  he  will  be- 
come educated.  No  man  ever  talked  with  Mr. 
Finney  half  an  hour  without  being  impressed 
with  the  great  scope  and  variety  of  his  learning. 
It  seemed  almost  presumption  to  attempt  to  en- 
lighten him  on  any  subject.  Yet,  if  a  man  values 
his  reputation,  it  is  not  enough  to  secure  an 
education;  he  must  secure  a  diploma  and  become 
one  of  a  body  of  alumni  who  habitually  speak 

of  their  college  and  their  fellow  alumni  as  great. 

r28] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

Mr.  Finney  has  said,  in  his  '* Memoirs": 

*'  I  never  possessed  so  much  knowledge  of  the 
ancient  languages  as  to  think  myself  capable  of 
independently  criticising  our  English  transla- 
tion of  the  Bible." 

It  would  be  well,  if  some  of  our  Bible  critics 
were  educated  enough  to  say  the  same.  Mr. 
Finney  ^s  knowledge  of  the  Greek  Testament  and 
Hebrew  Bible  was  much  more  intimate  and  pro- 
found than  that  of  most  seminary  graduates.^ 

He  had  a  peculiarly  inquiring  mind  and  every- 
thing in  nature,  books,  or  the  affairs  of  men, 
interested  him.  He  was  not  content  with  a  mere 
smattering  of  information;  it  must  be  full  and 
exact,  or  he  professed  ignorance.  He  was  a  mas- 
ter of  the  English  language.  His  style  was 
formed  by  general  reading,  but  chiefly  by  study- 
ing Shakespeare,  Blackstone,  the  decisions  of 

^  One  of  his  most  cherished  possessions  was  a  handsome  copy 
of  Bagster's  English  Hexapla — which  contained  the  Greek  Text 
of  the  New  Testament,  after  Scholz,  at  the  head  of  the  pages  and, 
in  parallel  columns  underneath,  the  six  most  important  English 
translations  (Wickliffe,  1380,  Tyndale,  1534,  Cranmer,  1539, 
Geneva,  1558,  Anglo-Rhenish,  1582,  and  King  James,  1611).  The 
man  who  studies  these  devoutly  has  little  need  for  self-dependent 
criticism. 

[29] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

such  judges  as  Chancellors  Kent  and  Livingston, 
and — after  he  had  once  made  its  acquaintance — 
the  English  Bible. 

His  large  library  at  Oberlin  was  lined  from 
floor  to  ceiling  with  the  best  English  literature — 
Histories,  Biographies,  Essays,  Commentaries, 
Scientific  and  Philosophical  Works — everything 
in  fact  except  Fiction,  and  the  numerous  mar- 
ginal notes  in  his  handwriting  showed  that  they 
were  carefully  and  thoughtfully  read.  He 
dared  not  indulge  in  the  reading  of  novels  after 
he  entered  the  ministry,  although  he  had  read 
Richardson,  Fielding  and  Be  Foe  before,  and 
seized  with  avidity  on  the  Waverly  Novels 
as  fast  as  they  appeared.  Whenever,  in 
later  life,  he  allowed  himself  to  listen  to  the 
reading  of  a  novel,  his  attention  became  rapt  and 
he  was  easily  moved  to  laughter  or  tears  by  the 
wit  or  pathos  of  such  masters  as  Charles  Reade, 
Thackeray  and  Bickens.  But  he  felt  and  said 
that  it  was  dissipation — an  unwholesome  strain 
upon  the  emotions.  No  resulting  good  could  be 
accomplished  and  all  stirring  of  the  emotions 
which  could  not  be  followed  up  by  appropriate 

[30] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

action  was  as  bad  and  weakening  in  its  effects 
on  the  mind  as  alcoholic  stimulants  were  on  the 
will  and  body. 

There  are  many  solecisms  in  the  published 
reports  of  his  ''Revival  Lectures,"  but  anyone 
who  will  turn  to  the  prefaces  will  discover  that 
Mr.  Finney  did  not  write  these  lectures.  They 
were  delivered  ex  tempore.  Mr.  Joshua  Leavitt, 
publisher  of  The  Evangelist,  made  notes  in  long 
hand  and  wrote  them  out  hurriedly  from  these 
notes  and  sent  them  to  The  Evangelist  for  publi- 
cation. Mr.  Finney  never  saw  them  until  after 
they  were  in  print.  They  were  reprinted  in 
book  form  from  The  Evangelist  in  April,  1835. 
Mr.  Finney  was  painfully  conscious  of  their  im- 
perfections ;  but,  at  the  time  they  were  published, 
he  had  many  serious  matters  to  occupy  his 
thoughts — one  of  them  being  the  question 
whether  or  not  he  should  go  to  Oberlin — and  he 
had  no  time  to  revise  them  carefully.  Thus  we 
have,  in  "Revival  Lectures,"  perhaps  half  of 
Mr.  Finney's  thoughts,  clothed  in  the  language 
of  another,  except  where  certain  passages  were 
so  striking  as  to  fasten  themselves  in  the  mind 

[31] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

of  the  reporter.  I  doubt  if  one  ever  heard  an 
Tingrammatical  expression,  or  an  imperfectly 
constructed  sentence,  come  from  Mr.  Finney's 
lips.  His  ''Memoirs"  are  a  much  more  reliable 
exhibit  of  his  English  style,  though  these,  too, 
were  taken  down  from  dictation,  after  he  was  75 
years  old. 

In  1818,  Mr.  Finney  settled  down  to  the  study 
of  law  at  Adams,  a  lively  little  town  near  his 
paternal  home.  He  read  law  diligently,  became 
the  law  clerk  of  Judge  Benjamin  Wright,  the 
most  prominent  lawyer  and  politician  in  that 
region,  was  admitted  to  practice  at  the  age  of 
twenty-eight,  and  at  once  became  active  in  the 
profession. 

When  he  first  went  to  Adams  he  was  asked  to 
lead  the  choir,  on  account  of  his  musical  accom- 
plishments, and  he  accepted.  He  organized  the 
young  people  of  the  village  into  a  chorus,  taught 
them  singing,  and  led  them  with  his  'cello.  They 
became  warmly  attached  to  him,  as  did  all  who 
were  brought  into  contact  with  him.  A  year 
after  Mr.  Finney  went  to  Adams,  Rev.  George 
W.  Gale,  a  graduate  of  Princeton  College  and 

[32] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

Seminary,  was  installed  as  pastor  of  the  church. 
He  was  struck  with  the  intelligence,  high  char- 
acter, and  remarkable  influence  of  Mr.  Finney, 
and  made  a  confidant  of  him.  On  ''blue  Mon- 
day" he  often  sought  him  out  and  asked  him 
what  he  thought  of  the  sermon  the  day  before. 
These  sermons  were  always  carefully  written 
and  left  small  excuse  for  criticism  as  English 
compositions,  but  Mr.  Finney  was  painfully  can- 
did— he  never  did  flatter  anybody — and  told  him 
that  he  did  not  believe  the  people  understood 
one-half  of  what  was  written  and  that  many  of 
his  doctrines  were  contrary  to  reason.  They  had 
many  arguments.  Mr.  Finney  was  fearless  and 
unsparing  in  his  criticism,  and  if  Monday  was 
*'blue"  before  the  interview,  it  must  often  have 
appeared  Mack  before  they  got  through.  Yet 
Mr.  Finney  was  so  manifestly  serious  and  sin- 
cere, it  was  impossible  to  feel  resentment.  Mr. 
Gale  did,  however,  feel  deeply  concerned  at  Mr. 
Finney's  mental  attitude,  and  he  warned  other 
young  people  not  to  talk  with  him,  as  he  would 
surely  lead  them  astray. 


[33] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

When  the  session  proposed,  in  1821,  to  try  to 
get  up  a  revival  in  the  church,  Mr.  Gale  said  it 
was  of  no  use;  that  Mr.  Finney's  influence  with 
the  young  people  was  so  great  that  nothing  could 
be  done  with  them  while  he  remained  in  Adams. 
He  said  that  he  had  labored  with  Mr.  Finney 
for  two  years  and  came  nearer  to  making  ship- 
wreck of  his  own  faith  than  to  converting  him. 
He  said  he  found  him  very  intelligent  and  very 
hardened  and  not  at  all  impressed  with  the  im- 
portance of  religion.  Other  men  about  town 
would  say,  when  approached  on  the  subject  of 
religion,  **Well,  there's  Finney,  he  attends 
church  all  the  time — why  don't  you  convert  him? 
If  he  becomes  a  Christian,  I'll  think  there's 
something  in  it."  Mr.  Gale  found  himself  in  a 
heart  breaking  position — as  many  another  young 
minister  has — ^trying,  without  meeting  his  argu- 
ments, to  convert  a  man  who  would  reason  in- 
stead of  accepting  the  doctrines  of  the  church  on 
authority.  His  health  began  to  fail  and  he  told 
them  they  had  better  call  some  one  else,  as  he 
was  not  equal  to  the  situation.  Church  people 
were  filled  with  doubt  and  discouragement.     The 

[34] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

irreligious  laughed  and  said,  *^Mr.  Finney  is 
too  much  for  them.  He  is  altogether  too  smart 
to  be  caught  by  such  chaff."  Some  of  this  talk 
reached  Mr.  Finney's  ears  and  ministered  to  his 
pride.  On  Sunday,  October  7,  1821,  Mr.  Gale — 
sick  in  body  and  ill  at  ease — preached  in  a  half 
hearted  way.  There  was  not  the  slightest  change 
apparent  in  the  manner,  of  that  young  man,  whose 
blue  eyes  almost  paralyzed  him  with  their  cold, 
critical  searching. 

Yet,  on  the  following  Thursday  morning,  ex- 
cited people  spread  the  news  all  over  town,  ''Mr. 
Finney  has  been  converted.  Mr.  Finney  has 
been  converted."  The  news  seemed  too  good  to 
be  true.  Mr.  Gale  said  he  did  not  believe  it,  and 
one  of  the  local  skeptics  said,  ''It  is  one  of  Fin- 
ney's practical  jokes.  He  is  trying  to  see  just 
what  he  can  make  people  believe." 

That  evening  the  church  was  crowded  with 
people,  without  any  appointment,  eager  to  hear 
all  about  it,  and  Mr.  Finney,  himself,  rose,  with- 
out any  preliminary  exercises,  or  introduction, 
and  related  his  experience,  and  the  great  revival 
in  Adams  began  then  and  there. 

[35] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON   FINNEY 

There  was  absolutely  nothing  in  the  ministry 
at  that  time  to  attract  an  ambitious  and  self- 
seeking  man.  Religion  was  everywhere  at  a 
low  ebb;  the  prominent  professional  and  busi- 
ness men  had  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  it; 
clergymen  were  poorly  paid  and  treated  with 
scant  respect;  Tom  Paine 's  ^'Age  of  Reason" 
and  so-called  *' French  Infidelity"  had  infected 
the  masses;  churches  and  church  meetings 
seemed  to  be  kept  up  for  the  exclusive  benefit  of 
a  few  superstitious  women  and  goody-good  chil- 
dren. Mr.  Finney  was  proud,  ambitious,  accom- 
plished and  self-seeking,  and  on  the  high  road 
to  success  in  his  chosen  profession.  The  his- 
torian of  Jefferson  County,  New  York,  speaking 
of  the  conversion  of  Mr.  Finney,  says : 

**  He  had  previously  been  a  law  student  under 
Judge  Benjamin  Wright  and  evinced  an  ability 
and  sagacity  that  would  doubtless  have  made 
him  eminent  in  that  profession."^ 

One  of  the  younger  set,  who  were  devoted  ad- 
mirers and  followers  of  Mr.  Finney,  said : 

*  Houghes'  History  of  Jefferson  County,  N.  Y.,  1854,  p.  76. 

[36] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

''When  lie  abandoned  the  profession  and  de- 
cided to  study  for  the  ministry,  we  all  felt  that 
he  had  made  an  awful  mistake.  That  if  he  had 
continued  in  the  practice  he  was  destined,  in  a 
very  short  time,  to  attain  the  highest  position  at 
the  bar  and  in  politics."  ^ 

He  was  peculiarly  fitted  to  succeed  in  the 
practice  of  law  at  a  time  when  text-books  were 
almost  imknown,  when  the  published  reports 
could  all  be  placed  upon  a  single  shelf ;  ^  and 
when  success  depended  upon  close,  logical 
reasoning  from  general  principles.  He,  him- 
self, has  recorded  that  he  loved  Ms  profession 


'  Horatio  N.  Davis,  father  of  Senator  Cushman  K.  Davis. 

^  The  text-books  were  Coke  upon  Littleton,  Blackstone's  Com- 
mentaries, Feame  on  Remainders,  Sugden's  Law  of  Vendors, 
Sugden  on  Powers,  and  local  Form  Books  and  Treatises  on  Prac- 
tice. Chancellor  Kent  and  Joseph  Story  were  still  on  the  bench 
and  had  not  begun  to  write  the  Commentaries  and  text-books 
which  afterwards  became  so  prominent  in  the  education  of 
lawyers  and  the  opinions  of  courts.  English  reports  were  very 
expensive  and,  as  a  rule,  inaccessible  to  the  country  lawyers. 
The  New  York  reports  then  consisted  of  Coleman  &  Caines'  Cases, 
1  vol.;  Caines'  Cases,  2  vols.;  Caines'  Reports,  3  vols.;  Johnson's 
Cases,  3  vols. ;  Johnson's  Chancery  Reports,  4  vols.,  and  Johnson's 
Reports,  18  vols.  Besides  these  a  well  stocked  law  library  would 
contain  the  reports  of  Connecticut,  9  vols. ;  Massachusetts,  8  vols. ; 
Vei-mont,  4  vols.;  and  the  U.  S.  Supreme  Court  Reports,  18  vols. 

[37] 


CHARLES  GRANDISON  FINNEY 

and  that  the  stumbling  block  in  the  way  of  his 
earlier  conversion,  was  the  feeling  that  if  he 
submitted,  he  would  have  to  give  up  his  practice 
and  go  into  the  ministry.^  Every  judge  and 
lawyer  who  heard  Mr.  Finney  preach  felt  that 
a  great  lawyer  was  lost  to  the  bar  of  New  York, 
when  Charles  Gr.  Finney  united  with  the  church 
at  Adams.  We  have  said  that  he  was  ambitious. 
The  petty  practice  of  a  country  town  would  not 
have  contented  him  long.  Either  he  would  have 
moved  to  a  larger  city — Utica,  Rochester,  or  Al- 
bany— and  sought  business  of  a  higher  type,  or 
he  would  have  gone  into  politics ;  and  here,  again, 
circmnstances  were  such  as  to  favor  a  successful 
career. 

Political  conditions  were  chaotic,  old  parties 
breaking  up,  new  parties  forming  and  elections 
turning  on  the  popularity  or  unpopularity  of  a 
single  man,  or  measure,  or  the  eloquence  of  a 
particular  speaker.  The  Federalist  Party  had 
lost  its  great  leaders  and  its  prestige.  The  real 
strife  in  New  York  politics  was  between  factions 

*  Memoirs  of  Charles  G.  Finney,  pp.  25,  36. 
[38] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

of  the  Republican  (Democratic)  Party,  and  Fed- 
eralists could  not  hope  to  succeed,  except  as  they 
coalesced  with  one  or  the  other  of  the  factions  of 
the  dominant  party.  It  was  one  of  those  crises 
in  American  history  when  the  management  of 
affairs  seems  to  pass  from  the  old  leaders  of  a 
dying  party  to  the  young  men  of  the  opposite 
party,  leaping  over  an  entire  generation.  The 
*' Revolutionary  Statesmen"  were  being  rele- 
gated to  the  rear  and  young  men  of  ability  came 
rapidly  to  the  front.  For  example,  Silas 
Wright,  three  years  younger  than  Mr.  Finney, 
was  admitted  to  the  bar  at  Canton  in  the  adjoin- 
ing county  of  St.  Lawrence,  in  1819 ;  was  elected 
to  the  State  Senate  in  1823,  to  Congress  in  a  dis- 
trict which  embraced  Jefferson  County,  in  1827 ; 
became  Comptroller  of  State  in  1829,  United 
States  Senator  in  1833,  and  again  in  1837,  and 
Governor  of  the  State  in  1844.  He  became  an 
influential  member  of  the  self-appointed  clique, 
called  the  ''Albany  Regency,"  which,  under  the 
leadership  of  Van  Buren,  dominated  the  Repub- 
lican (Democratic)  Party  and  practically  dic- 
tated all  its  nominations  and  appointments — one 

[39] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

of  tlie  earliest  and  most  efficient  "machines"  in 
politics.^ 

Mr.  Finney's  opportunity  lay  in  the  opposi- 
tion to  this  ruling  ''ring."  The  Federalists 
alone  had  no  power  to  overthrow  it ;  but  a  great 
many  of  the  Democrats  were  dissatisfied  and 
ready  to  unite  with  them,  or  other  parties,  to 
overthrow  the  ''ring,"  whenever  a  promising 
issue  could  be  raised,  or  a  persuasive  candidate 
could  be  found..  Thurlow  Weed,  one  of  the 
ablest  politicians  the  State  has  ever  known,  di- 
rected the  opposition  to  the  "Regency"  and  was 
on  the  lookout  for  strong  men,  or  popular  meas- 
ures, about  which  to  rally  the  scattered  forces 
of  the  discontented.  He  scored  his  first  great 
victory  in  1824  when  the  "Regency,"  in  mere 
wantonness  of  power,  deposed  He  Witt  Clinton 
from  the  Erie  Canal  Commission.  The  Erie 
Canal  owed  its  inception  and  successful  comple- 
tion to  De  Witt  Clinton,  more  than  to  any  other 
man  in  the  State,  and  the  people  of  Central  New 
York  rose  up  in  wrath,  nominated  him  for  Gov- 

^  Hough's  History  of  St.  Lawrence  County,  N.  Y.,  pp.  613 
to  615;  Autobiography  of  Thurlow  Weed,  p.  103. 

[40] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

emor  in  a  convention  of  what  was  called  ''The 
People's  Party,"  at  Utica,  and  elected  him  by 
an  overwhelming  majority/  Judge  Benjamin 
Wright,  in  whose  office  Mr.  Finney  studied  law, 
was  a  shrewd  politician  and  a  warm  personal 
friend  of  De  Witt  Clinton^  who  appointed  him 
Canal  Commissioner  at  one  time  and  Surrogate 
of  Jefferson  County  at  a  later  time.^  Mr.  Fin- 
ney's sympathies  would  all  have  been  with  Clin- 
ton, and  his  mistreatment  would  have  excited 
his  indignation,  as  injustice  and  oppression 
always  did.  Jefferson  County  was  debatable 
ground  and  had  been  for  thirty  years,  no  party 
having  a  record  of  continued  success  and  majori- 
ties being  very  small.^  Mr.  Finney  would,  cer- 
tainly have  taken  the  stump  for  Clinton  and 
shared  in  his  triumph.  Two  results  would  in- 
evitably have  followed.  He  would  have  estab- 
lished a  wide  reputation  as  a  powerful  speaker, 
and  that  sleepless  ambition,  which  drives  the 


*  Autobiography  of  Thurlow  Weed,  pp.  74,  109-121,  204,  205; 
Bancroft's  Life  of  Seward,  pp.  15-20. 

*  Emerson's'  History  of  Jefferson  County,  N.  Y.,  pp.  188,  428 ; 
Houghes'  History  of  Jefferson  County,  N.  Y.,  pp.  76,  368. 

*Houghes'  History  of  Jefferson  County,  N.  Y.,  pp.  371,  372. 

[41] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

politician  ever  onward,  would  have  taken  full 
possession  of  him.  He  would  have  been  "re- 
warded/^ as  was  the  fashion  in  those  days,  by  a 
political  appointment,  or,  more  likely,  by  a 
nomination  and  election  to  the  State  Senate. 
This  was  a  position  much  sought  after  by  young 
lawyers,  for  the  Senate  was  then  modeled  some- 
what after  the  English  House  of  Lords  and  exer- 
cised judicial  powers  as  a  Court  of  Error  and 
Appeal.^  Here  he  would  have  attracted  the  at- 
tention of  Thurlow  Weed,  who  would  have 
found  in  him  just  the  man  he  needed  to  head  the 
opposition.  Weed,  himself,  was  no  speaker.^ 
What  would  have  followed  may  be  judged  from 
the  career  of  William  H.  Seward,  who  first  came 
into  prominence  in  this  campaign  of  1824,  and 
was,  thereafter,  zealously  pushed  forward  by 
A¥eed.  He  was  elected  State  Senator  in  1830; 
nominated  for  Governor  on  the  Anti-Masonic 
ticket  in  1834;  nominated  and  elected  by  the 
Whigs  in  1838,  and  again  in  1840 ;  became  United 

'  Lothrop's  Life  of  Seward,  pp.  19-21. 

^Autobiography,  pp.  106,  172;  Bancroft's  Life  of  Seward, 
pp.  25-31. 

[42] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

States  Senator  in  1849  and  1855,  and  a  promi- 
nent candidate  for  the  Republican  Presidential 
nomination  in  1856  and  1860,  and  was  appointed 
Secretary  of  State  in  1861. 

Mr.  Finney,  if  in  politics,  would  have  had  the 
advantage  of  Mr.  Seward  in  every  respect.  He 
was  nine  years  his  senior  in  age,  two  years  his 
senior  at  the  bar,  and  his  commanding  figure  and 
penetrating  musical  voice  would  have  contrasted 
favorably  with  the  diminutive  stature  and  shrill 
voice  of  Seward.     Seward  says  of  himself : 

*' Earlier  than  I  can  remember  I  had  a  catar- 
rhal affection,  which  had  left  my  voice  husky  and 
incapable  of  free  intonation.  I  had  occasion 
throughout  my  college  course  to  discover  that  I 
was  imsuccessful  in  declamation."  ^ 

His  biographer  says  of  him : 

**  Seward  had  no  special  gift  of  voice,  or  pres- 
ence. He  was  below  the  average  height,  with 
nothing  commanding  in  his  appearance,  and  his 
voice  was  harsh  and  shrill,  but  there  was  courage 
and  earnestness  about  his  campaign  speeches 
.     .     .    which  made  them  most  effective."  ^ 

*  Lothrop's  Life  of  Seward,  p.  60. 

*  Bancroft's  Life  of  Seward,  p,  10. 

[43] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

As  for  courage  and  earnestness,  Mr.  Finney 
was  more  than  a  matcli  for  Seward  and  he  would 
have  been  more  consistent  in  his  political  action. 
His  well-known  convictions  at  each  stage  of 
political  evolution,  corresponded  closely  with 
Seward's,  down  to  1860,  when  the  latter  seemed 
disposed  to  surrender  all  the  principles  for 
which  the  Republicans  had  fought  and  won,  in 
a  vain  effort  to  placate  the  South. 

Loved,  admired,  respected,  with  a  large  and 
devoted  following,  if  any  man  should  have  been 
satisfied  with  his  prospects  in  life  and  could  have 
got  along  without  religion  in  this  world,  it  was 
Charles  C  Finney  at  the  age  of  twenty-nine. 

His  conversion  resulted  from  thoughtful  read- 
ing of  the  Bible,  a  copy  of  which  he  had  bought 
shortly  after  beginning  the  study  of  the  law — 
the  first  he  had  ever  owned.  He  had  read  many 
books  before — everything,  in  fact,  he  could  find 
within  a  day's  walk  of  places  where  he  chanced 
to  live — but  this  book  was  different.  It  was  the 
only  book  that  described  God  as  having  any  in- 
terest in,  or  direct  influence  over  the  affairs  of 
men,  as  asserting  Divine  authority  and  promis- 

[44] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

ing  to  reward  or  punish  men  according  to  their 
deserts.  It  kindled  new  thoughts  in  his  active 
mind  and  he  began  to  see  in  dim  outline  the  great 
scheme  of  the  moral  universe.  In  a  few  months' 
time,  he  became  convinced  that  the  Bible  was 
indeed  the  word  of  God ;  that  no  men  could  have 
written  such  a  book  without  being  Divinely  in- 
spired. He  then  studied  it  with  the  diligence 
that  he  had  before  given  to  the  New  York  Sta- 
tutes and  Reports  and  to  his  legal  text-books. 

He  had  developed  a  well-rounded  creed  of  his 
own,  before  he  was  oppressed  with  the  feeling 
that  it  was  time  to  act.  Religion  was  simply  a 
life  of  obedience  to  God.  Conversion  was  sim- 
ply a  determination  to  lead  that  life.  It  in- 
volved a  complete  surrender  of  one's  own  plans 
and  wishes.  Anything  short  of  this  was  per- 
sistence in  disobedience,  and  disobedience  was 
sin.  Mr.  Finney's  life  had  been  correct,  judged 
by  human  standards,  and  he  could  only  accuse 
himself  of  pride,  wilfulness,  and  an  indifference 
to  religion  which  amounted  to  contempt  of  God. 
But  these  were  real  offenses. 

He  began  to  feel  the  need  of  pardon  and  f or- 

[45] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

giveness.  Then  arose  the  question  of  the  terms 
of  forgiveness.  He  indulged  in  secret  prayer. 
And  the  more  he  read  and  prayed,  the  more  con- 
vinced he  became  that  he  must  get  rid  of  his 
pride  and  ambition,  must  give  up  the  profession 
which  he  loved,  and  the  political  prospects  which 
glittered  before  him,  and  must  atone  for  his 
previous  indifference — ^by  supreme  devotion  to 
the  Master's  service.  Could  he  do  it?  What 
would  people  say  ?  The  very  reiteration  of  these 
questions  revealed  to  him  the  sinfulness  of  his 
heart,  the  proud  and  selfish  spirit  which  had 
actuated  him  all  along.  Then  followed  that  great 
emotional  struggle,  of  which  no  man  but  himself 
was  aware  at  the  time,  lasting  three  days  and 
three  nights,  at  the  end  of  which  he  made  a  com- 
plete surrender,  gave  up  everything  for  which  he 
had  planned  and  worked,  and  received  the  assur- 
ance that  he  was  forgiven.  The  struggle  was  so 
severe  and  the  joy  of  adoption  so  overwhelming, 
that  he  always  remembered  and  often  celebrated 
the  day  of  this  *'new  birth,"  October  10,  1821. 
The  keynote  of  his  whole  subsequent  career  is 
found  in  his  remark  to  a  client,  next  morning : 

[46] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

**I  have  a  retainer  from  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
to  plead  His  cause,  and  you  must  go  and  get 
some  one  else  to  attend  to  your  law  suit.  I  can- 
not do  it." 

He  refused  all  offers  of  business  after  that,  be- 
cause he  did  not  dare  trust  himself  in  the  excite- 
ment of  a  contested  law  suit.  He  began,  at  once, 
to  work  for  the  conversion  of  others.  He  called 
his  choir  together,  confessed  that  he  had  been 
a  stumbling  block  in  the  way  of  their  conversion, 
asked  for  their  forgiveness,  related  his  experi- 
ence, urged  them  to  become  Christians  at  once, 
and  prayed  with  them ;  and  all  joined  the  church 
within  a  short  time.  One  of  these  converts  was  a 
daughter  of  Judge  Wright,  who  became  the 
mother  of  Bishop  Henry  B.  Whipple,  of  Minne- 
sota.^ Can  anyone  estimate  the  far-reaching 
consequences  of  a  single  conversion?  In  a  few 
days  he  went  to  Henderson,  spoke  to  his  parents 
and  appointed  a  prayer  and  conference  meeting 
at  the  Baptist  church — ^then  without  a  pastor — 
and  a  revival  began  there.  Wherever  he  was 
known,  the  most  powerful  argument  that  could 

*  Emerson's  History  of  Jefferson  County,  N.  Y.,  pp.  428,  429. 

[47] 


CHARLES  GRANDISON  FlNNEY 

be  used  was  the  fact  of  Ms  own  conversion.  If 
this  intellectual  skeptic,  this  promising  lawyer 
and  rising  politician,  this  boon  companion  and 
social  leader  had  become  converted,  there  must 
be  something  in  religion.  Men's  attention  was 
arrested,  their  thoughts  were  engaged,  and  they 
yielded  to  his  argmnents  and  prayers  almost  in- 
stantly.^ Long  before  Mr.  Finney  was  licensed 
to  preach,  he  had  accomplished  more  in  the  way 
of  converting  souls  than  most  ministers  do  in  a 
life  time. 

When  he  announced  his  intention  to  study  for 
the  ministry,  the  local  Presbytery  committed 
him  to  the  care  of  Mr.  Gale,  and  he  pursued  his 
studies  under  Mr.  Gale's  direction  and  part  of 
the  time  at  his  house.  His  theological  education 
seems  to  have  consisted  largely  in  reading  his 
Bible  and  disputing  certain  doctrines  of  the  Old 
School  Presbyterians.  He  accepted  nothing  on 
Mr.  Gale's  say-so,  and  the  fact  that  such  and  such 
views  were  held  at  Princeton  made  no  impres- 
sion upon  him.    He  continued  to  reason,  and  to 

*  Davenport's  Primitive  Traits  in  Religious  Revivals,  pp.  190, 
191. 

[48] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

accept  nothing  that  his  reason  did  not  commend, 
and  poor  Mr.  Gale  said  again  and  again : 

**  Mr.  Finney,  if  you  continue  to  argue  and 
reason,  you  will  land  in  infidelity,  just  as  many 
of  the  students  at  Princeton  have  done.  You 
must  accept  some  things  on  the  faith  of  the 
great  fathers  of  the  church,  and  not  be  so 
opinionated.'' 

The  fruit  of  this  reliance  on  his  own  reasoning 
was  seen  in  his  absolute  confidence  in  his  con- 
clusions. He  not  only  rested  on  convictions  so 
reached,  but  he  believed  that  he  could  convince 
any  man,  who  was  honest  and  earnest,  of  the 
truth  of  his  views.  This  was  one  secret  of  his 
tremendous  power  over  adults. 

After  he  was  licensed  to  preach,  wherever  he 
went  he  sought  out  privately,  or  contrived  to  have 
brought  before  him,  the  men  of  character  and 
intelligence  who  were  indifferent,  or  openly 
opposed  to  religion,  and  reasoned  with  them.  He 
would  say: 

"I  have  not  come  to  find  fault,  I  have  been  in 
the  same  position  myself.     I  may  be  able  to  help 

4  [49] 


CHARLES  GRANDISON  FINNEY 

you  solve  some  of  your  difficulties.  I  think  I 
have  found  the  truth.  Let  us  talk  it  over  and 
see  if  you  are  mistaken,  or  whether  I  am  all 
wrong." 

And  he  almost  never  failed,  if  the  man  was 
really  a  man  of  character,  and  had  no  secret 
vices.  Among  the  first  to  be  converted  in  Rome, 
Utica  and  Rochester  were  the  Presidents  of  In- 
fidel Clubs  founded  on  Tom  Paine 's  ''Age  of 
Reason.'^  If  Tom  Paine  had  been  living,  Mr. 
Finney  would  undoubtedly  have  sought  him  out 
and  reasoned  with  him. 

In  the  midst  of  the  revival  at  Adams,  a  leading 
preacher  of  the  Universalist  church  appeared 
on  the  scene  and,  in  rival  meetings,  deprecated 
the  excitement  among  the  young  people,  said 
that  they  were  needlessly  alarmed,  God's  mercy 
was  not  limited,  they  ought  not  to  go  about  mak- 
ing themselves  and  everyone  else  imhappy.  No 
man  need  be  scared  into  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven;  they  would  all  get  there  in  good  time, 
&c.,  &c.  The  effect  on  the  progress  of  the  re- 
vival was  paralyzing  and  the  elders  of  the  church 
urged  Mr.  Gale  to  make  direct  reply,  but  Mr. 

[50] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

Gale  was  in  ill  health  and  really  unfitted  by  his 
training  to  reason  with  an  unbeliever.  He 
asked  Mr.  Finney — who  had  just  begun  his 
** Study  of  Theology"  to  make  some  reply.  Mr. 
Finney's  action  was  characteristic.  He  got  up 
before  the  people  at  prayer  meeting  and  said: 
*'I  will  hear  this  man.  I  will  give  due  weight  to 
his  arguments.  I  will  read  my  Bible.  I  will 
study  and  pray,  and  if  you  will  come  here  one 
week  from  to-night,  I  will  either  convince  you 
that  he  is  wrong,  or,  I  will  become  a  TJniversalist 
myself."  This  was  not  bravado,  but  the  sincere 
declaration  of  a  man,  who  was  willing  to  put 
•everything  to  the  test  and  accept  any  conclusion 
to  which  his  examination  led  him.  Mr.  Gale  was 
shocked  at  his  temerity  and  all  were  a  little  fear- 
ful about  the  outcome ;  but  one  week  from  that 
night  they  came,  the  house  was  crowded,  and  he 
came  and — it  is  needless  to  say — he  did  not  he- 
come  a  Universalist.  Starting  with  their  fun- 
damental doctrine,  he  said  that  Christ  died,  in- 
deed, for  all  men,  but  it  did  not  follow  that  all 
would  be  saved.  There  was  no  such  thing  as 
automatic  salvation.    It  was  not  only  contrary 

[51] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

to  Scripture,  but  was  condemned  hy  reason  as 
absurd.  A  man  must  repent  and  do  works  meet 
for  repentance,  or  lie  could  never  be  classed  with 
the  righteous.  The  responsibility  for  success 
or  failure  was  placed  squarely  on  the  individual, 
when  once  a  way  had  been  opened,  &c.  The  de- 
cline of  the  Universalist  church,  which  was 
strong  at  one  time,  was  due,  largely,  to  the  un- 
dermining effect  of  its  own  commonly  received 
doctrine.  If  all  men  are  to  be  saved,  anyhow, 
why  go  to  the  trouble  and  expense  of  keeping  up 
churches  % 

When  the  Bench  and  Bar  of  Rochester,  New 
York,  united  in  a  written  request  to  Mr.  Finney 
to  deliver  a  series  of  lectures  for  their  especial 
benefit,  he  was  warned  that  they  were  mostly 
Deists,  and  not  particularly  concerned  about 
their  soul's  salvation;  that  they  had  all  read 
Tom  Paine  and  did  not  believe  in  the  Bible ;  and 
that  many  of  them  signed  just  out  of  curiosity 
to  hear  what  kind  of  an  argument  a  lawyer  could 
put  up  for  religion.  Mr.  Finney  accepted  the 
challenge,  took  the  Bible  from  its  place  on  the 
pulpit  and  said  he  would  not  replace  it,  until 

[52] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

they  were  convinced  in  their  hearts  that  it  ought 
to  be  there  and  that  they  needed  it. 

He  took  for  the  text  of  his  first  discourse,  ^'Bo 
We  Know  Anything '^'^  and  reasoned  from  the 
facts  of  common  experience  and  the  dictates  of 
common  sense  for  nine  successive  sessions,  of 
two  hours  each.  He  awakened  in  every  mind  a 
conviction  of  sin;  the  certainty  that  an  omnis- 
cient God  must  know  and  disapprove  of  it ;  the 
certainty  that  a  just  God  would  punish  it,  as  an 
infraction  of  the  moral  law  which  was  written 
in  every  heart ;  that  we  all  saw  sinners  escaping 
just  punishment  in  this  world  and,  as  lawyers, 
sometimes  helped  them  to  escape;  that  this 
brought  contempt  on  the  administration  of  jus- 
tice here  on  earth,  and  that  like  contempt  would 
be  felt  for  God's  government,  unless  we  believed 
that  somehow,  somewhere,  they  would  get  their 
just  deserts ;  that  no  one  who  believed  in  God  at 
all  could  doubt  his  power  to  administer  punish- 
ment and  that  it  would  be  right  to  do  so.  The 
penalties  for  violating  Nature's  laws  were  inex- 
orable and  everlasting.  They  could  derive  no 
comfort  from  analogy,  and  common  sense  could 

[63] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

not  show  them  how  to  escape  like  consequences 
for  a  violation  of  the  Moral  Law.  The  sinner's 
case  was  hopeless  and  deservedly  so.  He 
searched  their  consciences.  With  his  knowledge 
of  human  nature,  he  lifted  the  veil  from  long 
hidden  faults  and  exposed  their  failings  and 
corruption  to  themselves.  If  you  won't  obey 
God  or  the  dictates  of  your  own  consciences 
now,  why  should  you  ever  do  so?  Even  if  you 
make  up  your  minds  to  do  so  from  now  hence- 
forth, how  are  you  going  to  atone  for  the  sins 
already  committed  ?  You  can  never  make  good 
even  to  your  fellow-men,  the  losses  you  have  in- 
flicted upon  them.  Damages,  as  every  lawyer 
knows,  are  poor  reparation  for  sufferings  in- 
flicted by  wilful  misconduct.  How,  then,  can 
you  satisfy  the  demands  of  the  moral  Ruler  of 
the  Universe,  to  whom  damages  are  as  dust  in 
the  balance,  an  earthly  expedient  beneath 
contempt  % 

Then  he  took  the  Bible  and  they  listened,  with 
streaming  eyes,  as  he  read  the  tender  passages  of 
Scripture,  revealing  God's  love  and  fatherly 
solicitude  and  the  Gospel  Plan  of  Salvation, 

[54] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS      • 

"And  that  is  the  book/'  he  said,  "which  you 
have  removed  from  your  shelves  to  make  room 
for  Tom  Paine 's  shallow  *Age  of  Reason'! 
How  can  you  escape  if  you  neglect  so  great  sal- 
vation?" The  effect  was  tremendous.  Judge 
Gardiner,  of  the  New  York  Court  of  Appeals, 
crept  up  the  pulpit  steps  and  said,  "Mr. 
Finney  I  am  convinced.  Won't  you  pray  for 
me  by  name  and  I  will  take. the  anxious  seat." 
The  lawyers  rose  en  masse  and  crowded  to  the 
front  and  knelt  -down  for  prayers.  Nearly 
every  one  was  converted.  Many  of  them  gave 
up  their  profession  and  went  into  the  ministry. 
The  revival  swept  the  whole  community  and 
spread  from  it  as  a  centre  in  every  direction. 
Oh,  that  we  had  that  magnificent  argument  in 
permanent  form!  It  could  not  be  compre- 
hended by  children  of  sixteen,  but  it  might  con- 
tinue to  save  men,  as  it  did  when  originally 
delivered. 

Mr.  Finney  never  went  into  the  pulpit 
without  a  determination  to  win  his  case.  He 
wanted  a  verdict  from  every  audience  he  faced, 
and  if  he  did  not  get  it,  he  felt  that  his  sermon 

[65] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

was  wasted.  He  aimed  at  producing  conviction, 
confession,  repentance,  restitution,  submission, 
prayer  for  forgiveness,  and  self  dedication  to 
God's  service.  Unless  a  man  is  convicted  of 
sin,  nothing  can  be  done  with  him,  because  he 
feels  no  need  of  Salvation.  Christ  did  not  die 
for  him.  It  was  in  his  efforts  to  produce  this 
necessary  conviction  that  Mr.  Finney  displayed 
his  wonderful  knowledge  of  human  nature  and 
set  up  the  most  exalted  standard  of  ethics. 

'*If  you  design  to  make  an  impression  con- 
trary to  the  naked  truth — you  lie/' 

'*  If,  in  managing  an  estate,  you  gain  for  your- 
self some  advantage  which  you  might  have 
gained  for  the  estate — you  steal/' 

He  said,  in  1834,  to  an  audience  of  New  York 
business  men: 

"  The  reason  there  is  not  more  pure  piety  in 
New  York  City  is  that  almost  every  one  is  guilty 
of  some  form  of  dishonesty." 

He  struck  at  the  present  day  evil  of  ''Rebates" 
when,  in  1834,  he  denounced  at  one  and  the  same 
time  the  merchant  who  asked  one  price  and 
would  take  another ;  and  the  customer  who,  when 

[56] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

told  the  price  of  an  article,  immediately  tried 
to  get  it  for  less.  Both  were  trying  to  deceive 
and  each  was  seeking  to  get  an  undue  advantage 
of  the  other.  The  customer,  who  supposed  he 
was  getting  goods  for  less  than  their  true  value, 
must  also  have  supposed  that  other  customers 
would  have  to  pay  more  in  order  to  make  up  for 
the  loss.  He  therefore  was  willing  to  rob  others 
that  he  himself  might  become  rich. 

The  Tappans,  merchant  princes,  were  so  im- 
pressed with  this  argument  that  they  adopted 
the  one  price  plan  and,  strange  to  say,  lost  a 
large  percentage  of  their  customers,  who  insisted 
on  buying  their  goods  for  less  than  they  sup- 
posed any  one  else  would  have  to  pay. 

He  sounded  the  key  note  of  civic  reform  when 
he  preached  to  his  congregation  in  the  Broadway 
Tabernacle : 

"Instead  of  voting  for  a  man  because  he  be- 
longs to  your  party  .  .  .  you  must  find  out 
whether  he  is  honest  and  fit  to  be  trusted.  .  .  . 
If  you  will  give  your  vote  only  for  honest  men, 
the  country  will  be  obliged  to  have  honest  rulers. 
All  parties  will  be  compelled  to  put  up  honest 
men  as  candidates." 

[57] 


CHARLES  GRANDISON  FINNEY 

He  would  not  preach  the  doctrine  of  ''Im- 
puted Sin/'  because  he  believed  every  man  had 
quite  enough  sins  of  his  own  to  atone  for.  His 
favorite  recipe  for  the  "uncou  gude"  was  to 
have  him  write  down  any  doubtful  act  he  had 
ever  been  guilty  of,  then  go  to  his  neighbor 
against  whom  the  fault  was  committed  and  make 
confession  and  restitution,  then  try  to  think  of 
another  and  set  it  down.  ''Once  you  have  be- 
gun," he  adds,  cheerfully,  "you  will  be  surprised 
to  see  how  easy  it  is  to  remember  others,  and  how 
little  conceit  you  will  have  left. ' ' 

He  insisted  on  confession  and  restitution  and 
would  promise  relief  on  no  other  terms. 

"If  you  have  defrauded  anybody,  send  the 
money — ^the  full  amount — and  the  interest/^ 

"If  the  individual  you  have  injured  is  too  far 
off  for  you  to  go  and  see  him,  sit  down  and  write 
him  a  letter  and  confess  the  injury,  pay  the 
postage  and  put  it  into  the  mail  immediately." 

He  had  to  be  particular  about  the  postage, 
for,  in  his  day,  letters  could  be  sent  at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  person  addressed. 

[68] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

"A  man  does  not  forsake  his  sins  until  he 
has  made  all  the  reparation  in  his  power." 

''If  you  think  you  can  practice  a  little  dis- 
honesty and  yet  continue  to  enjoy  the  presence  of 
God,  you  deceive  yourselves.'^ 

He  spoke  of  sins  prevalent  in  the  communities 
he  visited,  in  the  most  direct  and  scathing  terms. 
He  called  a  spade,  "a  spade"  and  not  ''an  agri- 
cultural implement  compounded  of  wood  and 
iron."  An  unrepentant  sinner  was  a  wretch,  to 
be  despised  and  condemned,  and  not  a  mere  un- 
fortunate, to  be  pitied  and  coddled. 

Men  often  resented  what  they  regarded  as  per- 
sonal allusions,  and  threatened  to  chastise  and 
even  kill  him ;  but  there  was  something  so  majes- 
tic in  his  bearing,  so  earnest  and  sincere  in  his 
words  and  manner,  that  no  one  ever  got  near  to 
him  without  being  overcome.  He  never  had  a 
personal  encounter  after  he  entered  the  minis- 
try.^   One  man  said : 

*An  amusing  story  used  to  go  the  rounds,  periodically,  that 
Mr.  Finney,  walking  on  the  tow  path  of  the  Erie  Canal  near 
Rome,  met  a  boatman  who  was  cursing  fearfully  at  his  horses, 
who  were  tired  and  balky.  Mr.  Finney  stopped  him  and  said, 
"  See  here !    Do  you  know  where  you  are  going?  "    The  man  said, 

[59] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

*'When  I  heard  about  what  Finney  said,  I 
wanted  to  thrash  him;  when  I  saw  him,  I  had 
my  doubts  as  to  whether  I  could;  and  when  I 
heard  him,  he  could  do  what  he  pleased  with 
me." 

He  was  not  content  with  mere  "professions  of 
faith.''  There  must  be  newness  of  life.  He 
cleaned  up  every  community  he  visited — and  so 
thoroughly,  that  they  stayed  clean  for  at  least 
a  generation  afterwards. 

What  Dr.  Bush  says  of  the  revival  in  Roches- 
ter might  be  said  of  every  place  in  which  he 
preached : 

"  Yes,  d — n  it !    I  am  going  to  Rome,  if  I  can  ever  get  these 

horses  to  move  along."    "  No  you  are  not,"  said  Mr.  Finney, 

"  you  are  going  straight  to  hell."  "  Is  that  so  ?  "  said  the  boat- 
man. "Well!  do  you  know  where  you  are  going?"  Mr.  Finney 
expressed  the  hope  that  he  would  get  to  Heaven.  "  That  shows 
how  little  you  know,"  said  the  boatman.  "  You  are  going  into  the 
canal,"  and  he  seized  him  and  threw  him  in.  When  pressed  for 
an  answer  as  to  whether  this  story  was  true,  Mr.  Finney  laughed. 
"  Ask  any  man  that  ever  wrestled  with  me.  Ask  the  men  who 
tried  to  initiate  me  in  the  Masonic  Lodge  at  Adams,  whether  they 
believe  that  yam  is  true.  I  never  saw  a  boatman  that  could  put 
me  in  the  canal."  It  seems  that  during  an  initiation,  when  Mr. 
Finney  was  blindfolded  and  half  dressed,  some  one  took  an 
indecent  liberty  with  his  person.  He  resented  it  hotly  and  laid 
about  him  with  such  vigor  that  all  who  could  not  get  out  of  the 
room  were  badly  bruised  and  disfigured  and  the  furniture  was 
smashed  to  pieces. 

[60] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

*^  .  .  .  The  courts  and  the  prisons  bore 
witness  to  its  blessed  effects.  There  was  a  won- 
derful falling  off  in  crime.  The  courts  had  little 
to  do,  and  the  jail  was  nearly  empty  for  years 
afterwards. ' '  * 

When  Mr.  Finney  was  licensed  to  preach,  he 
first  went  to  small  towns  in  Jefferson  and  St. 
Lawrence  Counties,  under  the  auspices  of  a 
Women's  Missionary  Society.  He  preached  in 
churches,  school  houses,  barns — anywhere  where 
he  could  gather  an  audience.    As  Dr.  Bush  said : 

**The  amount  of  hard  work  for  brain  and 
muscle  performed  by  that  man  in  those  six 
months  was  something  prodigious."  ^ 

He  preached  three  times  on  Sundays  and 
three  or  four  times  during  the  week,  attended 
prayer  and  inquiry  meetings,  went  from  house 
to  house  talking  and  praying  with  the  people, 
and  was  accessible  to  visitors  at  all  hours  of  the 
day  or  night.  His  sermons  averaged  two  hours 
in  length  and  often  extended  to  two  and  a  half 
or  three.    Yet  whether  he  preached  in  the  back 

*  Reminiscences,  p.  15.  '  Reminiscences,  p.  11. 

[61] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

woods,  or  the  cities  of  New  York,  or  in  the  great 
city  of  London,  his  audience  never  seemed  to 
weary,  and  it  was  a  rare  circumstance  for  any 
to  go  out.  Such  interest  can  only  be  awakened 
and  kept  up  by  an  engaging  personality,  by  the 
highest  oratorical  power,  by  ever  varying  the 
themes  and  illustrations,  and  by  presenting  new 
thoughts,  or  old  thoughts  clothed  in  new  and 
striking  phraseology.  The  first  half  hour  was 
usually  didactic  and  expository.  He  defined 
words  largely  by  stating  what  they  did  not  mean, 
thus  getting  rid  of  popular  misconceptions ;  then 
he  proceeded  to  make  practical  application  of 
the  doctrine  embodied  in  the  text  to  the  affairs 
of  life,  and  to  point  out  what  sort  of  people  it 
was  intended  to  fit,  and  there  were  just  such 
persons  in  nearly  every  audience.  On  one  occa- 
sion he  was  describing  the  petty  advantages 
trustees  may  secure  at  the  expense  of  the  bene- 
ficiaries, exchanging  their  own  doubtful  or 
worthless  securities  for  valuable  assets  belonging 
to  the  estate,  &c.,  and  said:  ''If  I  were  omnis- 
cient, as  God  is,  I  could  doubtless  name  persons 
in  this  very  audience  who  are  guilty  of  just  such 

[62] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

practices."  A  respected  citizen  cried  out: 
*'Name  me!"  and  sank  down  in  an  agony  of 
shame  and  contrition.  Mr.  Finney  said  he  knew 
of  hundreds  of  just  such  cases,  and  thousands 
where  the  parties  made  no  public  confession,  but 
made  immediate  restitution.  In  most  of  these 
cases,  he  had  no  actual  knowledge  of  wrong- 
doing. He  simply  had — ^what  he  said  all  minis- 
ters should  have  to  be  effective — a  thorough 
knowledge  of  human  nature  and  the  courage  to 
denounce  sin,  though  the  sinner  sat  right  before 
him.  All  this  part  of  the  sermon  was  clear, 
logical,  and  forcible,  and  delivered  in  the  manner 
of  the  class-room,  or  court-room,  rather  than 
that  of  the  pulpit  or  platform.  Then  he  closed 
with  "a  few  remarks"  which  might  last  half  an 
hour,  or  an  hour  and  a  half — ^no  one  ever  knew, 
or  cared  to  know,  for  it  was  at  this  stage  of  the 
sermon  that  he  summoned  every  power  of  imag- 
ination, feeling,  gesture  and  facial  expression 
to  his  aid,  and  his  wonderful  word-paintings 
thrilled  his  audience,  and  his  appeals  to  the 
emotions  were  most  effective. 

And  it  was  here,  all  reports  of  his  sermons 

[63] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

completely  fail.  Mr.  Finney  never  wrote  but 
two  sermons  in  his  life  and  that  was  at  the  very 
outset  of  his  career.  He  always  preached  ex 
tempore,  because  it  was  the  most  effective 
method  and  because  he  thought  the  time  given 
to  writing  out  and  polishing  up  sermons  might 
better  be  given  to  reading,  prayer  and  medita- 
tion. He  gave  more  thought  to  the  substance  of 
his  discourse  than  would  have  been  possible  if  he 
had  attempted  to  reduce  it  to  writing.  **What 
would  be  thought  of  a  lawyer,"  he  used  to  say, 
*'who  should  stand  up  before  a  jury  and  read 
an  essay  to  them?    He  would  lose  his  case !" 

All  that  is  left  of  his  sermons — saving  a  few 
*' skeletons"  or  outlines  of  his  discourses  pre- 
pared by  himself — is  what  has  filtered  through 
the  minds  of  non-professional  reporters  like 
Rev.  Joshua  R.  Leavitt,  Rev.  Henry  Cowles  and 
Rev.  Samuel  D.  Cochran.  The  style  of  each  of 
these  men  impressed  itself  on  Mr.  Finney's 
thought,  in  transmission,  and  it  was  impossible 
for  them  to  convey  all  of  his  thought,  much 
less  his  imagery  and  pathos.  A  professional 
stenographer  was  employed  at  one  time  to  re- 

[64] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

port  his  sermons  in  Niblo's  Theatre,  New  York 
City.  He  succeeded  very  well  for  fifteen  or 
twenty  minutes,  but  when  Mr.  Finney  began  to 
warm  up,  and  his  words  began  to  glow  with 
feeling,  he  forgot  entirely  what  he  was  there  for 
and  sat,  with  idle  pencil,  in  open-mouthed  aston- 
ishment. He  could  not  be  persuaded  to  try 
again. 

Dr.  Edwards  Park  said : 

''Some  of  his  rhetorical  utterances  were  in- 
describable .  .  .  but  if  every  word  of  it 
were  on  the  printed  page,  it  would  not  be  the 
identical  sermon  of  the  living  preacher."^ 

We  can  only  refer  to  the  impression  made 
upon  the  minds  of  his  auditors,  and  judge  of  the 
effort  by  the  tremendous  results. 

Dr.  Theodore  Cuyler  says : 

''Charles  Gr.  Finney  was  the  acknowledged 
king  of  American  evangelists.  .  .  .  His  ser- 
mons were  chain  lightning,  flashing  conviction 
into  the  hearts  of  the  stoutest  skeptics  and  the 
links  of  his  logic  were  so  compact  they  defied 

*  Charles  Grandison  Finney,  by  G.  Frederick  Wright,  pp. 
72,  74. 

5  [65] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

resistance.  Probably  no  minister  in  America 
ever  mmibered  among  his  converts  so  many  law- 
yers and  men  of  culture."  ^ 

Prof.  Davenport  says : 

*'No  explanation  of  Finney's  career  would  be 
at  all  sufficient  wMch  did  not  take  into  account 
the  almost  preternatural  influence  of  suggestion 
which  he  exercised  over  men's  minds.  His 
power  to  compel  individuals  and  audiences  to  his 
will  and  purposes  was,  it  seems  to  me,  the  most 
extraordinary  that  appears  in  any  evangelist." 

*'  .  .  .  So  no  explanation  would  be  at  all 
adequate  which  did  not  recognize  his  higher 
ethical  and  spiritual  qualities  and  especially  the 
possession  of  a  very  clear  and  vigorous  mind."  ^ 

Rev.  Dr.  Stanton,  of  Cincinnati,  said: 

*'I  have  heard  many  of  the  great  preachers  of 
the  day  and  I  regard  him  as  the  greatest 
preacher  I  ever  heard. ' '  ^ 

William  E.  Dodge,  a  New  York  business  man, 
said: 

*  Recollections  of  a  Long  Life,  p.  215. 

"  Primitive  Traits  in  Religious  Revivals,  pp.  194,  195,  201. 

^Reminiscences,  p.  26. 

[66] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

"He  was  the  most  remarkable  preacher  that 
I  have  ever  listened  to.  He  would  hold  those 
audiences  in  Prince  Street  and  the  Tabernacle 
for  an  hour  and  a  half  or  two  hours  and  no  one 
seemed  to  think  that  the  time  hung  heavy.'' 


'?  1 


Dr.  Joseph  P.  Thompson,  one  of  his  successors 
in  the  pulpit  of  the  Broadway  Tabernacle,  gives 
a  most  interesting  account  of  the  way  Mr.  Fin- 
ney prepared  his  sermons,  and  analyzes  his 
power  as  follows : 

**Mr.  Finney's  method  of  preaching  was  pecu- 
liar. Gifted  with  fine  powers  of  analysis  which 
were  early  disciplined  in  the  study  of  law,  he 
has  also  the  constructive  faculty  in  a  high  de- 
gree ;  so  that  he  can  at  once  dissect  an  error,  or 
sophism,  analyze  a  complex  feeling,  motive,  or 
action,  and  build  a  logical  argument  with  ciunu- 
lative  force.  With  these  he  combines  a  vivid 
imagination  and  the  power  of  graphic  descrip- 
tion. Nor,  with  the  seeming  sharpness  and 
severity  of  his  logic  and  the  terrors  which  his 
fancy  portrays,  is  he  wanting  in  tenderness  of 
feeling.  His  experimental  knowledge  of  Divine 
truth  is  deep  and  thorough ;  and  his  knowledge  of 

^  Reminiscences,  p.  33. 

[67] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

the  workings  of  the  human  mind  under  that 
truth  is  extended  and  philosophical.  Hence  his 
preaching  searches  the  conscience,  convinces  the 
judgment  and  stirs  the  will  either  to  assent  or  to 
rebellion.  His  elocution,  though  unstudied  and 
sometimes  inelegant,  is  strangely  effective ;  and, 
in  the  proper  mood  of  an  assembly,  a  pause,  a 
gesture,  an  emphasis,  an  inflection,  an  exclama- 
tion, will  produce  the  highest  oratorical  effects. 
The  conviction  of  sincerity  attends  his  words; 
the  force  of  an  earnest  mind  goes  with  his 
logic."  ^ 

He  was  unconsciously  dramatic;  never  theat- 
rical. One  of  the  most  impressive  sermons  I 
ever  heard  him  deliver  was  on  the  text : 

''Judgment  also  will  I  lay  to  the  line,  and 
righteousness  to  the  plummet,  and  the  hail  shall 
sweep  away  the  refuge  of  lies. "  ^ 

It  was  an  exposition  of  merciless  justice;  of 
what  guilty  men  had  the  right  to  expect ;  of  the 
futility  of  the  excuses  men  were  prone  to  offer 
for  evil  courses;  and  of  the  terrors  that  would 
overtake  them  when  judgment  was  at  hand. 

'  Last  Sabbath  in  the  Broadway  Tabernacle,  pp.  14,  15. 
*  Isaiah  xxviii,  17. 

[68] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

Then,  right  before  our  eyes,  he  conjured  up  such 
a  fearful  storm  of  wind,  rain  and  hail  that  I  grew 
chilled  through  and  through.  I  shivered  and 
buttoned  my  coat  up  tight  and  I  saw  uneasiness 
and  apprehension  depicted  on  the  faces  of  all 
around  me. 

I  was  never  more  astonished  in  my  life  than 
when  I  went  outside  and  saw  the  world  bathed 
in  sunlight,  the  birds  twittering,  and  all  as  calm 
and  serene  as  a  June  day  could  ever  be. 

And  yet  1  have  been  told  that  I  never  heard 
Mr.  Finney  preach ;  that  his  powers  were  on  the 
decline  before  I  had  come  to  years  of  under- 
standing ! 

How  he  did  it  I  cannot  tell.  No  one  can  tell. 
He  probably  could  not  tell,  himself.  He  just 
imagined  the  coming  of  an  awful  storm  and  then 
described  what  he  imagined,  and  we  saw  and 
felt  all  that  he  imagined. 

You  can  read  Prof.  Cowles'  report  of  this 
very  sermon ;  *  but  you  will  not  find  in  it  a  word 
that  even  suggests  this  part  of  the  sermon.     The 

*  Gospel  Themes,  p.  119. 
[69] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

sermon  itself  was  an  hour  and  a  half  long ;  you 
can  read  Prof.  Cowles'  report  in  fifteen  minutes. 

If  you  were  to  ask  any  man,  who  had  heard 
Mr.  Finney  preach  between  the  years  1824  and 
1860,  '*What  was  the  most  impressive  sermon 
you  ever  heard?"  the  chances  are  one  hundred 
to  one,  he  would  name  some  one  of  Mr.  Finney's. 

Dr.  Edward  Beecher  says  a  sermon  Mr.  Fin- 
ney preached  in  the  Park  Street  Church,  Boston, 
in  1831,  was 

"the  most  impressive  and  powerful  sermon  I 
ever  heard.  No  one  can  form  any  conception  of 
the  power  of  his  appeal."  ^ 

Dr.  Edwards  Park  says  the  greatest  sermon  he 
ever  heard  was  one  preached  by  Mr.  Finney  in 
Andover,  on  the  text,  "The  Wages  of  Sin  is 
Death."    Romans  vi,  23. 

"Every  one  of  the  men  [sitting  with  him]  was 
trembling  with  excitement." 

General  J.  D.  Cox  has  told  me  of  the  tremen- 
dous effect  of  a  sermon  preached  from  the  same 

*  Wright's  Charies  Grandison  Finney,  p.  105. 
[70] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

text  in  Niblo's  Theatre  in  New  York.  But  the 
greatest  sermon  he  ever  heard  was  one  from  the 
text,  ''How  shall  we  escape  if  we  neglect  so  great 
salvation  ?"  Hebrews  ii,  3.  General  Cox  was  a 
cool  man,  a  brave  man,  not  given  to  hysterics, 
and,  like  Mr.  Finney,  he  would  reason.  Yet,  at 
the  close  of  that  seiTnon,  when  sinners  were  in- 
vited to  come  forward  and  accept  the  proffered 
salvation,  and  the  aisles  were  crowded,  he  went 
leaping  down  to  the  front,  using  the  backs  of  the 
seats  as  stepping  stones.  He  believed  then  that 
if  he  remained  in  his  seat  one  minute  his  soul 
would  be  lost.  Various  efforts  have  been  made 
to  define  this  power.  Some  writers  call  it 
''psychic  influence";  some,  the  "power  of  sug- 
gestion." Some  say  he  had  "personal  magne- 
tism"; others,  a  "high  hypnotic  potential."  I 
call  it  a  transcendent  power  of  communicating 
thought,  imagination  and  feeling.  But  none  of 
these  definitions  help  us  to  understand  it,  or 
acquire  it. 

His  success  among  the  rude  frontier  settlers 
might  be  attributed  to  the  reawakening  of  a  sense 
of  decency  in  the  hearts  of  men  conscious  of  their 

[71] 


CHARLES  GRANDISON  FINNEY 

coarseness  and  degradation.  The  people  knew 
they  were  leading  immoral  lives  and  didn't  need 
any  argument  to  convince  them  of  sin.  All  they 
needed  was  a  cogent  appeal  to  abandon  it.  But 
when  Mr.  Finney  began  preaching  in  the  cities — 
Rome,  Utica,  Auburn,  Troy,  Rochester — ^he  had 
an  altogether  different  class  to  deal  with,  and  his 
success  was  even  more  phenomenal.  The  re- 
vival in  these  places  began  at  the  top  and  worked 
downwards.  The  first  to  be  converted  were  the 
educated  men,  leading  citizens,  respected  judges, 
lawyers,  doctors,  bankers,  merchants,  manufac- 
turers— and  they  constituted  the  prominent  por- 
tion of  his  audiences  to  the  end.  The  whole  com- 
munity was  involved  in  serious  thought  and  con- 
versation, and  the  very  atmosphere  seemed 
charged  with  emotion.^  During  twenty  days 
spent  in  Rome  there  were  five  hundred  conver- 
sions. **  Nearly  all  the  adult  population  of  the 
town  were  brought  into  the  church."  In  Utica 
and  vicinity  some  fifteen  hundred  were  added  to 
the  churches  in  a  six  weeks'  campaign.     In  the 

'  Davenport,  Primitive  Traits,  p.  192. 
[72] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

Oneida  Presbytery,  alone,  over  three  thousand 
conversions  were  reported  as  the  result  of  his 
labors  in  the  year  1826. 

Then  a  strange  thing  happened.  Christ  said 
to  His  apostles:  "They  shall  put  you  out  of  the 
synagogues."  John  xvi,  2.  This  was  spoken  of 
the  Jews;  but  the  Presbyterians  took  it  upon 
themselves  to  fulfil  the  prophecy  in  the  nine- 
teenth century.  As  the  news  of  these  revivals 
spread,  a  powerful  opposition  was  awakened.  It 
seemed  as  though  the  thing  most  to  be  dreaded 
by  all  orthodox  Presbyterians,  was  a  sudden  in- 
crease in  church  membership.  Dr.  Morgan  has 
recorded  that  even  he  **was  shocked  with  the 
rapidity  with  which  converts  were  admitted  to 
the  churches."  ^  Dr.  Lyman  Beecher  of  Boston, 
Dr.  N.  W.  Taylor  of  New  Haven,  and  Dr.  Asahel 
Nettleton,  having  no  personal  knowledge  of  the 
facts  and  misled  by  some  very  sensational  re- 
ports of  the  meetings,  began  writing  letters  to 
the  brethren,  in  New  York  State  and  elsewhere, 
warning  them  against  Mr.  Finney  and  his  "new 

*  Reminiscences,  p.  57. 
[73] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON   FINNEY 

measures/*  advising  them  not  to  invite  him  to 
their  pulpits,  or  to  countenance  his  revivals. 
These  letters  were  received,  among  others,  by 
pastors  with  whom  he  had  been  working  at 
Rome,  Utica,  Clinton,  Auburn,  and  Troy,  and 
were  shown  to  him.  The  objectors  were  shining 
lights  in  the  church,  all  of  them  successful  re- 
vivalists of  high  repute.  To  a  man  of  Mr.  Fin- 
ney's sensitiveness,  this  concerted  movement  to 
suppress  him  was  a  prof  oimd  shock.  For  a  time 
all  seemed  dark  before  him,  and  it  seemed  cer- 
tain that  he  nmst  give  up  preaching  and  go  back 
to  the  practice  of  the  law.  He  tried  to  think 
of  all  occasions  for  offense  he  had  given,  he  wept 
and  prayed,  and  the  'cello,  long  neglected,  was 
again  brought  into  requisition.  At  last  he  re- 
ceived the  assurance  that  he  need  not  give  up,that 
if  he  would  persevere,  the  way  would  be  made 
plain  before  him,  and  opposition  would  cease. 
Mr.  Finney's  friends  and  coadjutors  set  to  work 
in  earnest  and  under  the  leadership  of  Dr.  Be- 
man,  of  Troy,  secured  a  conference  at  New  Leb- 
anon, in  July,  1827,  to  which  Dr.  Beecher,  Dr. 
Nettleton,  Dr.  Taylor,  Dr.  Hawes  of  Hartford, 

[74] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

President  Humphreys  of  Amherst  College,  Jus- 
tin Edwards  of  Andover,  and  other  New  Eng- 
land clergymen  came,  to  talk  matters  over  with 
the  clergy  of  Auburn,  Rome,  Utica,  Clinton,  and 
Troy.  The  conference  lasted  nine  days.  When 
the  facts  were  presented,  their  minds  were  dis- 
abused, their  prejudices  largely  dissipated,  and 
all  but  Dr.  Nettleton  professed  to  be  satisfied 
with  the  explanations  made.  On  his  way  home 
from  this  conference.  Dr.  Beecher  is  reported  to 
have  said, 

* '  We  crossed  the  mountains  expecting  to  meet 
a  company  of  hoys,  but  we  found  them  to  be  full 
grown  men."  ^ 

Mr.  Finney,  himself,  had  very  little  to  say, 
but  the  depth  of  his  feeling,  and  the  warmth  of 
his  gratitude  to  the  men  who  stood  by  him  in 
this  extremity,  may  be  judged  from  the  fact  that 
his  oldest  son,  born  three  years  later,  was  named 
Charles  Beman  after  Dr.  Beman  of  Troy,  and 
his  second  son,  the  donor  of  this  Chapel — born 

'  Wright's  Charles  Grandison  Finney,  p.  94. 
[75] 


CHARLES  GRANDISON  FINNEY 

five  years  later — ^was  named  Frederic  Norton 
after  Dr.  Norton  of  Clinton.^ 

Although  the  New  Lebanon  Conference  had 
tended  thus  to  clear  the  atmosphere,  the  New 
York  City  pastors  were  still  so  prejudiced  that 
none  of  them  would  invite  Mr.  Finney  to  his  pul- 
pit. Many  of  the  laymen  were  anxious  to  hear 
him,  and  Anson  Gr.  Phelps  determined  that  he 
should  be  heard  in  New  York  City.  He  hired  a 
vacant  church  that  could  be  had  for  three 
months,  and  sent  for  him,  agreeing  to  pay  all 
the  expenses  of  carrying  on  the  meetings.  When 
the  three  months  were  out,  Mr.  Phelps  purchased 
a  Universalist  Church  in  Prince  Street  near 
Broadway,  and  services  were  carried  on  there 
for  several  months.  As  there  was  no  organized 
church,  converts  were  instructed  to  unite  with 
the  church  they  had  been  accustomed  to  attend, 

'  The  middle  name  in  each  case  was  given  in  lienor  of  one  of 
his  friends,  Beman  and  Norton.  The  first  name  of  one,  Charles, 
was  after  himself,  and  the  first  name  of  the  other,  Frederic, 
bestowed  in  1832,  was  given  in  honor  of  Jean  Frederic  Oberlin, 
whose  life  he  had  just  been  reading  with  sympathetic  interest. 
It  was  a  singular  coincidence  that,  at  the  same  time,  John  J. 
Shipherd  was  reading  this  life  of  Oberlin  out  in  Elyria,  Ohio, 
and  gave  that  name  to  the  institution  which  he  was  about  to  found. 

[76] 


Frederic  Norton  Finney 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

or  the  one  nearest  to  where  they  lived,  and  thus, 
as  a  result  of  his  preaching,  every  Presbyterian, 
Dutch  Reformed,  and  Baptist  Church  in  New 
York  City  reported  accessions  of  from  fifty  to 
two  hundred  in  1830.  They  were  received  into 
churches  which  were  opposed  to  revivals,  and 
constituted  a  heljjless  minority,  and  Mr.  Phelps, 
the  Tappans  and  others,  who  were  by  this  time 
interested,  decided  that  they  ought  to  be  gath- 
ered into  churches  of  their  own,  where  their  new 
zeal  could  have  a  chance  to  show  itself  and  induce 
further  growth.  So  the  first  Free  Presbyterian 
Church  was  organized  and  put  under  the  charge 
of  Rev.  Joel  Parker,  of  Rochester,  New  York, 
and  it  prospered  so  greatly  that  a  Second  Free 
Presbjrterian  Church  was  organized  and,  in  1832, 
the  Chatham  Street  Theatre  was  purchased  and 
converted  into  a  chapel  on  condition  that  Mr. 
Finney  would  become  its  pastor.  In  the  mean- 
time he  had  been  having  powerful  revival  meet- 
ings at  Rochester,  Auburn,  Buffalo,  Providence, 
and  Boston.  He  commenced  in  April,  1832,  and 
worked  right  through  the  summer,  although  New 
York  City  had  a  terrible  visitation  of  the  cholera 

[77] 


CHARLES  GRANDISON  FINNEY 

and  he  could  count  five  hearses  at  a  time  drawn 
up  at  doors  on  the  street  where  he  lived. 
Finally,  in  the  fall,  he  was  stricken  with  the  dis- 
ease and  could  not  preach  again  until  the  follow- 
ing spring.  Then,  although  still  weak,  he  began 
his  labors  with  such  power  that  five  hundred 
members  were  added  in  a  few  weeks,  and  another 
and  another  colony  was  sent  off  to  form  new 
churches.  In  February,  1835,  Lewis  Tappan 
wrote  to  the  English  Commissioners  who  came  to 
study  the  State  of  Religion  in  America,  that  as  a 
result  of  this  movement  four  churches  had  been 
organized  in  as  many  years,  with  a  total  member- 
ship of  fifteen  hundred  and  eighty-seven;  that 
steps  were  being  taken  to  organize  two  more,  and 
that  fifty-one  young  men  belonging  to  these 
churches  were  studying  for  the  ministry,^  and, 
he  added : 

**More  than  half  the  persons  who  are  hope- 
fully converted  in  these  congregations  unite  with 
other  churches,  owing  to  various  circumstances." 

*  Letter  of  Lewis  Tappan,  Feb.  1, 1835,  published  as  Appendix 
VIII  to  Reed  &  Matheson's  Visit  to  American  Churches,  pp. 
345,  346. 

[78] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

**  Could  suitable  ministers  be  procured  it 
would  be  no  difficult  thing  for  the  membership  of 
the  Free  Churches  to  organize  many  new 
churches  every  year."  ^ 

In  the  fall  of  1833  Mr.  Finney's  friends  de- 
cided to  build  for  him  a  large  church  with  a  seat- 
ing capacity  of  twenty-five  hundred  and  a  total 
capacity  of  four  thousand.  He  designed  the 
structure  himself.  It  was  exactly  one  hundred 
feet  square,  with  plain  brick  walls,  located  fifty 
feet  from  Broadway  in  the  centre  of  a  built-up 
block,  so  that  not  a  dollar  should  be  wasted  on 
external  ornament.  He  cared  more  for  acous- 
tics than  aesthetics.  It  had  a  deep  gallery  all 
around  and  a  spacious  platform  about  one-third 
of  the  way  from  the  back  to  the  front.  Every 
listener  was  within  eighty  feet  of  the  speaker. 
It  was,  when  finished,  the  most  perfect  audi- 
torium in  New  York  City.  As  one  of  his  succes- 
sors said,  "it  was  one  in  which  the  speaker  could 
speak  and  the  hearers  hear,  without  effort/'  It 
cost    $66,500.    Under    the    rear    gallery    were 

^  Ihid.,  351.    See  also  Thompson's  Last  Sabbath  in  the  Broad- 
way Tabernacle,  p.  12. 

[79] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

arranged  rooms  for  the  pastor's  study,  and  a 
large  class-room  where  it  was  expected  that  he 
would  give  instruction  to  the  young  men  who 
were  preparing  for  the  ministry.^  Services 
were  held  in  it  for  the  first  time  in  April,  1835. 
Mr.  Finney  now  had  just  what  he  wanted,  a 
Ttou  aro  from  which  to  lift  the  whole  new  world. 
It  was  not  merely  that  New  York  was  the  largest 
city  on  the  Continent  and  capable  in  itself  of  fur- 
nishing large  and  ever  changing  audiences — but 
it  was  the  landing  place  of  nearly  all  European 
emigrants — English,  Scotch,  Irish,  Welsh,  Ger- 
man, Scandinavian;  it  was  the  place  to  which 
merchants,  planters,  and  manufacturers  went 
from  all  parts  of  the  country,  to  trade  and  lay 
in  their  stocks  of  goods  and  supplies.  They  had 
to  go  to  this  great  mart  of  commerce  several 
times  a  year,  because  "commercial  travellers" 
were  then  unknown.  Where  on  earth  could  a 
man  hope  to  exercise  a  greater  influence?    If 

*  Memoir  of  David  Hale,  by  Rev.  Jos.  P.  Thompson,  p.  62; 
Thompson's  Last  Sabbath  in  The  Broadway  Tabernacle,  pp.  13- 
16;  Sermon  of  Rev.  Charles  E.  Jefferson  at  60th  Anniversary  of 
The  Broadway  Tabernacle,  pp.  9-11.  These  gentlemen  are  not 
always  accurate  as  to  dates,  which  are  as  stated  in  the  text. 

[80] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

lie  regarded  fame — ^where  could  lie  find  a  better 
opportunity  to  achieve  it  ?  If  he  wished  to  pre- 
pare young  men  for  the  ministry,  the  class-room 
was  ready,  and  fifty-one  of  his  own  converts 
were  eager  to  begin  their  studies. 

Now  occurred  what  I  must  regard  as  the  most 
extraordinary  incident  in  this  extraordinary 
life.  Father  Shipherd,  having  secured  about 
the  most  undesirable  tract  of  land  to  be  found  in 
Northern  Ohio  and  founded  a  school  in  which 
labor  and  learning  were  to  go  hand  in  hand,  hav- 
ing cleared  about  twenty  acres,  erected  Oberlin 
Hall  (a  two-story  frame  building  about  thirty- 
five  by  forty  feet) ,  a  saw  mill  and  a  few  shanties, 
and  having  gotten  together  about  a  hundred  stu- 
dents— only  four  of  whom  were  far  enough  ad- 
vanced to  be  called  freshmen — went  to  New  York 
City  and  asked  Mr.  Finney  to  leave  his  church 
and  the  great  field  opening  before  him  and  come 
out  to  Oberlin  to  be  a  Professor  of  Theology. 
Was  there  ever  a  more  absurd  proposition? 

About  the  same  time,  a  country  clergyman  in 
New  England  was  invited  to  come  out  and  be-, 
come  one  of  the  professors.     He  declined  the 

6  [81] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

appointment,  saying  that  a  friend  whose  judg- 
ment he  was  bound  to  respect,  had  urged  the 
greatest  caution,  since  Oberlin  was  only  an  ex- 
periment, and  further,  '4t  was  the  offspring  of 
a  projector,  who  is  a  son  of  a  projector  whose 
projects  have  always  failed."  ^  That  was  what 
might  be  called  "the  common  sense  answer"  to 
such  a  proposition.  But  Mr.  Shipherd  had  one 
of  the  elements  of  a  successful  projector,  the 
nerve  to  ask  for  what  he  wanted.  The  New 
England  clergyman  had  comparatively  little  to 
lose.  Mr.  Finney  was  asked  to  throw  away  the 
finest  opportunity  that  any  preacher  of  his  day 
and  generation  ever  had — ^not  merely  an  oppor- 
tunity to  preach  to  large  crowds  and  become 
famous — ^but  an  opportunity  to  do  untold  good. 
What  other  clergymen  would  have  done,  under 
like  circumstances,  may  be  judged  from  Dr.  Cuy- 
ler's  attitude — after  the  future  of  Oberlin  was 
secure  beyond  a  reasonable  doubt.  Mr.  Finney, 
being  eighty  years  old  and  unable  longer  to 
preach  regularly,  was  trying  to  find  a  man  to 


'Leonard's  Story  of  Oberlin,  p.  105. 
[82] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

fill  the  First  Chiircli  pulpit.    He  wrote  to  Dr. 
Theodore  L.  Cuyler,  pleading  with  him  to  come. 

'*I  think  there  is  no  more  important  field  of 
ministerial  labor  in  the  world.  I  know  that  you 
have  a  great  congregation  in  Brooklyn  and  are 
mightily  prospered  in  your  labors,  but  your  flock 
does  not  contain  a  thousand  students  pursuing 
the  higher  branches  of  education  from  year  to 
year.  Surely  your  field  in  Brooklyn  is  not  more 
important  than  mine  was  at  the  Broadway  Tab- 
ernacle in  New  York,  nor  can  your  people  be 
more  attached  to  you  than  mine  were  to  me."  ^ 

Dr.  Cuyler  writes,  **the  kind  overture  was 
promptly  declined,"  and  does  not  seem  to  think 
his  decision  requires  any  explanation,  or  apol- 
ogy. There  were  favorable  considerations  pre- 
sented to  him,  that  could  not  be  presented  to 
Mr.  Finney.  And  yet,  Mr.  Finney  left  the 
Broadway  Tabernacle,  just  one  month  after 
it  was  completed,  and  came  to  Oberlin.  Dr. 
Charles  E.  Jefferson  said,  on  the  sixtieth  Anni- 
versary of  the  Broadway  Tabernacle : 

*  Recollections  of  a  Long  Life,  Theodore  L.  Cuyler,  p.  219. 

[83] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

**Wliat  might  have  been  the  future  under  Mr. 
Finney's  continued  leadership  we  shall  never 
know,  for  at  the  end  of  the  first  year,  two  visitors 
arrived  from  the  West  who  carried  him  to  Ohio, 
to  become  the  head  of  a  little  school  just  organ- 
ised at  Oherlin/' 

The  last  seven  words  of  Dr:  Jefferson  express 
his  opinion  of  the  move.  He  was  not  even  to  be 
the  head  of  the  ** little  school!" 

In  1851  Dr.  John  Campbell  of  London,  in  bid- 
ding farewell  to  Mr.  Finney,  after  nine  months 
of  continuous  revival  preaching,  said : 

**We  cannot  say  that  we  are  much  gratified  at 
the  thought  of  Mr.  Finney's  returning  to  College 
duties  and  the  general  ministry  of  a  rural 
charge.  We  do  not  consider  that  such  is  the 
place  for  the  man;  and  we  must  be  allowed  to 
think  that  fifteen  years  ago  a  mistake  was  com- 
mitted when  he  became  located  in  the  midst  of 
academic  bowers.  .  .  .  He  is  made  for  the 
millions — ^his  place  is  in  the  pulpit,  rather  than 
the  professor's  chair.  He  is  a  Heaven-born  sov- 
ereign of  the  people.  The  people  he  loves ;  and 
the  mass  of  the  people  all  but  idolize  him." 

These  men  probably  voiced  the  sentiment  of 
thousands  of  Mr.  Finney's  friends  and  admirers. 

[84] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

Why  did  he  go  ?  I  think  the  best  answer  which 
can  be  given  to  that  question  is,  because  he  did 
not  want  to.  That  was  the  answer  he  gave  to  a 
friend  who  asked  him  why  he  went  to  Boston  to 
preach,  when  he  had  remarked  that  the  condi- 
tions* were  more  discouraging  there  than  in  any 
large  city  which  he  visited/  Whenever  he  did 
what  he  did  not  want  to  do  his  labors  were  espe- 
cially blessed.  It  was  so  when  he  went  to 
Rochester,  after  he  and  all  the  friends  he  con- 
sulted had  concluded  that  he  ought  not  to  go 
there,  because  the  outlook  was  so  unfavorable. 

In  the  summer  of  1834,  Arthur  Tappan  had 
asked  him  to  go  out  to  Cincinnati  and  prepare  a 
class  of  forty  young  men  for  the  ministry,  and 
offered  to  pay  all  the  expenses.  These  young 
men  had  left  Lane  Seminary  in  a  body,  when  the 
Trustees  passed  a  resolution  suppressing  the  dis- 
cussion of  Slavery,  and  were  still  holding  to- 
gether at  Cumminsville,  a  suburb  of  Cincinnati. 
It  was  a  splendid  class,  their  average  age  was 
twenty-six,  they  were  men  of  mature  judgment, 

^  Deacon  Lamson,  Reminiscences,  p.  41. 
[85] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

well  grounded  in  classical  studies  and  practiced 
in  debate.  Two-thirds  of  them  were  from  New 
York  State  and  New  England,  and  a  majority  of 
them  were  Mr.  Finney's  own  converts.  Of 
course,  he  was  interested  in  them  and  anxious 
to  accommodate  Mr.  Tappan;  but  he  said  he 
could  not  leave  his  church,  and  made  the  sensible 
suggestion  that  as  soon  as  his  class-room  in  the 
Broadway  Tabernacle  was  ready  for  use  they 
should  be  brought  on  to  New  York  and  receive 
instruction  there.  He  considered  the  matter  as 
settled  and  went  on  to  prepare  and  deliver  that 
course  of  "Lectures  on  Revivals,''  which  had 
such  a  wide  circulation  and  influence.  Then 
came  Father  Shipherd  and  Rev.  Asa  Mahan, 
who  put  themselves  into  communication  with  the 
Tappans  and  reopened  the  whole  question.  Mr. 
Finney  did  not  want  to  leave  his  church  and, 
with  remarkable  foresight,  stated  the  hazards  of 
the  new  enterprise  and  the  objections  to  leaving 
his  work  in  the  city,  to  embark  on  what  Dr. 
Leonard  rightly  calls  a  "tremendous  venture."  ^ 

*  Leonard's  Story  of  Oberlin,  p.  278. 
[86] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

But  all  his  demands  were  met  and  at  last  the 
question  presented  itself  in  this  form:  Dr. 
Mahan  and  Professor  Morgan  and  at  least  forty 
students  of  Theology  will  go  to  Oberlin  if  you 
go.  The  Tappans  and  their  friends  will  provide 
salaries  for  eight  professors  and  will  pay  $10,000 
down  for  necessary  buildings,  and,  in  time, 
$80j000  more  for  endowment.  You  need  not 
give  up  your  church,  you  can  spend  your  sum- 
mers in  Oberlin  and  your  winters  in  New  York, 
and  the  church  will  pay  your  expenses  both  go- 
ing and  coming.  It  is  the  one  chance  to  establish 
a  school  in  the  West,  where  young  men  may  be 
I)roperly  trained  for  the  ministry  and  w^here  all 
men  may  gain  correct  views  of  the  great  evil  of 
slavery.  Still  more,  Arthur  Tappan  privately 
pledged  to  Mr.  Finney  his  entire  income,  then 
amounting  to  $100,000  a  year — less  what  was 
necessary  for  his  family — in  support  of  the  en- 
terprise. If  he  refused  to  go,  Oberlin  would  get 
nothing,  the  Lane  Seminary  students  would  scat- 
ter, and  a  great  opportunity  for  doiug  good 
would  be  lost. 

When  so  presented,  Mr.  Finney  feared  that 

[87] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

further  opposition  to  the  Oberlin  plan  might  be 
due  to  a  selfish  regard  for  his  own  comfort,  or 
advancement,  and  so — he  went.  If  he  had  come 
to  a  different  decision,  you  and  I  would  not  be 
here  to-day.  Our  fellow  alumni,  occupying  sta- 
tions of  usefulness  all  over  the  world,  would  not 
be  where  they  are.  President  Fairchild,  who 
never  used  extravagant  language,  wrote : 

**If  Charles  G.  Finney  had  not  lived  and  la- 
bored Oberlin  could  not  have  existed."  ^ 

** Without  them"  (the  anti-slavery  impulse 
and  Charles  Gr.  Finney)  "  Oberlin  could  never 
have  done  the  work  which  has  fallen  to  it  and 
probably  could  not  have  existed  beyond  a  single 
decade."^ 

Mr.  Finney's  coming  secured  for  Oberlin  not 
merely  the  things  promised,  but  the  attention  of 
the  whole  religious  world.  His  reputation  and 
wide  acquaintance  attracted  hundreds — I  may 
say  thousands — of  students  from  New  York, 
Pennsylvania,  and  New  England  long  before  the 
local  field  yielded  its  full  crops.    His  converts 

'  Reminiscences,  p.  77. 

*  Introduction  to  Leonard's  History  of  Oberlin,  p.  15. 

[88] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

and  children  of  his  converts  flocked  to  Oberlin, 
and  others,  who  knew  him  only  by  reputation, 
desired  to  have  their  children  educated  under  his 
influence.  For  similar  reasons  England,  Scot- 
land, Wales  and  the  West  Indies  contributed 
large  numbers  of  students.^ 

Mr.  Finney  insisted  that  one  of  the  first  eight 
professors  should  be  a  **  Professor  of  Sacred 
Music,''  and  that  the  best  man  who  could  be 
found  should  be  appointed  to  carry  it  to  its  high- 
est perfection.    He  tried  to  get  Mason,  Hast- 

*  Out  of  the  132  graduates  of  the  Theological  Seminary  in 
the  first  twelve  years  only  11 — just  one-twelfth — were  from  Ohio 
and  the  West.  Out  of  the  373  graduates  of  the  College  Depart- 
ment in  the  first  seventeen  years  after  his  coming  only  60 — less 
than  one-sixth — were  from  Ohio  and  the  West.  The  great 
majority  of  the  students,  in  both  College  and  Seminary,  were 
from  New  York  State  and  the  others  were  mostly  from  the  New 
England  States.  While  the  percentage  of  Ohio  students  in- 
creased rapidly  after  1853,  the  class  of  1861  was  the  first  in  which 
they  constituted  an  actual  majority  of  the  graduates.  The  Ohio 
students  were  induced  to  come  chiefly  by  the  strong  body  of 
students  present  from  other  States,  who  preached,  lectured  and 
taught  school  in  Ohio  during  the  long  winter  vacations.  The 
value  of  Mr.  Finney's  name  became  apparent  again  when  he  was 
elected  President,  in  1851,  to  succeed  President  Mahan.  An  en- 
dowment fund  of  $100,000  was  raised  almost  immediately;  the 
total  attendance  increased  from  571,  in  1851-2,  to  1020,  in  1852-3, 
and  1305,  in  1853^.  The  graduating  class  of  '51  numbered  but 
15.    The  graduating  class  of  '61  numbered  61. 

[891. 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

ings,  or  Bradbury,  but  they  were  not  altruistic 
enough  to  give  up  lucrative  church  and  chorus 
appointments  in  the  East;  although,  at  his  re- 
quest, both  Mason  and  Hastings  came  out  at 
various  times  to  give  the  Oberlin  chorus  special 
instruction  and  lead  the  Commencement  music. 
And  it  was  under  George  N.  Allen,  a  pupil  of 
Lowell  Mason,  that  classical  music  and  the  great 
chorus  became  established  features  of  Oberlin 
life  and  student  culture.  There  is  not  to-day  in 
all  this  broad  land,  one  college  which  can  boast 
of  such  a  choir  and  furnish  such  music  as  the 
Musical  Union  of  Oberlin.  It  is  perhaps  the 
greatest — certainly  the  most  quickly  appreci- 
ated— of  the  outward  signs  which  distinguish 
Oberlin  from  other  schools. 

But  Mr.  Finney  had  still  to  make  a  harder  de- 
cision. In  the  sunmaer  of  1837  he  was  satisfied 
that  he  could  not  continue  to  be  pastor  of  the 
Broadway  Tabernacle  and  Professor  of  The- 
ology at  Oberlin.  The  work  in  New  York  suf- 
fered during  his  absence  and  he  could  not  find 
an  assistant  pastor  capable  of  keeping  the  church 
alive  and  active  while  he  was  away. 

[90] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

The  attempt  to  fill  Mr.  Finney's  shoes,  six 
months  in  the  year,  might  well  appall  any  man. 
It  was  next  to  impossible  for  a  man  to  develop 
an  independent  line  of  thought  and  action,  while 
holding  over,  and  hence  his  responsibility  as  an 
individual  was  weakened  and  the  loyalty  of  his 
congregation  was  always  a  matter  of  doubt. 

He  must  give  up  one  or  the  other.  Which 
should  it  be?  While  he  was  debating  this 
question  at  Oberlin,  the  terrible  panic  of 
1837  struck  the  country,  and  nearly  every 
merchant  in  New  York  City  was  forced  into 
bankruptcy,  including  the  Tappans  and  all 
of  the  subscribers  to  the  $80,000  professorship 
fund.  Oberlin  was  cut  off  from  its  source  of 
supply  and  was  in  debt  nearly  $30,000  for  new 
buildings  and  expenses  incurred  on  the  faith  of 
the  promised  endowment.  The  Lane  Seminary 
students  had  mostly  graduated.  He  had  done 
his  full  duty  by  them.  Father  Shipherd  had 
gone  oft  to  found  other  institutions.  The  Col- 
lege enterprise  was,  to  all  appearance,  a  failure, 
and  he  was  under  no  legal  or  moral  obligation  to 
stay.  Of  course,  the  sensible  thing  to  do  was  to 
go  back  to  New  York  and  devote  himself  exclu- 

[91] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

sivelv  to  the  interests  of  his  church.  He  could 
find  a  ready  support  anywhere  in  the  East.  Let 
the  College  take  care  of  itself !  But  he  looked  at 
the  hard  lot  of  Oberlin  College  and  all  the  good 
people,  old  and  young,  who  had  come  there, 
largely  on  his  account,  and  again  he  chose  the 
rough  and  thorny  path  and  sent  his  resigna- 
tion— to  the  Broadway  Tabernacle.  His  cow 
died,  and  to  buy  another  he  sold  his  travelling 
trunk.  He  had  come  to  stay.  On  Thanksgiv- 
ing Day,  1837,  he  was  at  the  end  of  his  resources. 
He  did  not  know  where  he  could  get  f  imds  to  pay 
for  another  meal.  He  went  to  church  and  con- 
ducted Thanksgiving  services  for  a  congregation 
as  hard  pressed  as  himself;  and  all  were  lifted 
above  the  cares  of  this  world.  He  says,  naively, 
he  enjoyed  his  own  preaching  that  day  as  much 
as  ever  he  did  in  his  life,  and  then  went  home,  to 
be  met  at  the  gate  by  a  letter,  wholly  unexpected, 
from  Josiah  Chapin,  of  Providence,  Rhode 
Island,  enclosing  a  draft  for  $200  and  a  promise 
to  pay  his  salary  as  professor  as  long  as  it  might 
be  needed.^ 

*  Memoirs,  p.  338. 
[92] 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

The  prejudice  against  Oberlin  was  so  great,  on 
account  of  its  anti-slavery  principles,  coeduca- 
tion and  reception  of  colored  students,  and 
the  effect  of  the  panic  so  universal  and  prostrat- 
ing that  relief  could  not  be  expected  in  this  coun- 
try. After  much  prayer  and  consideration, 
Father  Keep  and  William  Dawes  were  sent  to 
England  to  try  and  raise  funds  to  tide  the  Col- 
lege over  its  difficulties.  Had  they  friends  or 
personal  acquaintances  in  England?  Not  one! 
What  interest  had  England  in  Oberlin  ?  At  that 
time,  absolutely  none !  Ohio  was  but  a  spot  on 
their  maps.  No  Englishman  had  ever  heard  of 
Oberlin.  How,  then,  could  these  men  expect  to 
get  a  dollar  for  the  College?  They  had  two 
words  to  conjure  with  —  Anti-Slavery  and 
Charles  Gr.  Finney.  England  had  just  emanci- 
pated her  slaves.  The  moral  force  which 
brought  this  about  had  not  spent  itself.  Mr. 
Finney's  reputation  preceded  Keep  and  Dawes 
across  the  ocean.  The  ''Revival  Lectures," 
which  he  preached  in  1834,  had  been  reprinted  in 
Great  Britain  and  had  an  enormous  circulation. 
One  publisher  alone  reported  a  sale  of  eighty 

[93] 


CHARLES   GRANDISON  FINNEY 

thousand  copies.  They  were  almost  sure  to  find 
a  copy  of  this  book  in  the  house  of  every  minister 
and  intelligent  layman  they  called  upon.  They 
could  say  the  author  of  this  popular  work,  this 
great  revivalist,  was  a  professor  and  pastor  at 
Oberlin;  that  he  was  influencing  hundreds  of 
yoimg  people  every  year,  each  of  whom  would  in 
turn  influence  hundreds  of  others  in  all  parts  of 
the  country,  and  that  this  whole  cumulative  in- 
fluence was  directed  against  slavery.  And  they 
could  add  that  all  this  was  in  danger,  unless  they 
could  get  a  little  timely  assistance — and  they  got 
$30,000  over  and  above  all  expenses. 

Friends: — time  will  not  permit  me  to  speak 
further  of  this  man.  You  are  probably  as  well 
informed  about  his  work  here  as  Professor, 
President,  Pastor  and  Guide,  as  I  am,  myself. 

It  is  fitting  that  this  Memorial  should  stand 
in  Oberlin,  on  the  site  where  he  lived  for  forty 
years.  It  is  fitting  that  it  should  take  the  form 
of  a  chapel,  in  which  large  numbers  can  be 
stirred  to  newness  of  life  by  good  preaching  and 
good  music. 

And  as  long  as  this  Chapel  stands,  let  men  re- 

[94] 


?^  a 

a  w 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS 

member  that  this  servant  of  God  based  his  faith 
on  reason,  addressed  himself  to  adults,  expected 
adults  to  be  converted,  and  was  not  disappointed. 
And  as  long  as  Oberlin  stands,  let  her  sons  and 
daughters  remember  that  he  who  was  greatest 
among  her  founders  accomplished  most  through 

THE  SACRiriCE  OF  SELF. 


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